It is impossible for God to speak to a human!

Those were the words of an Iranian prosecutor when Marzieh said she had converted to Christianity from Islam after being convicted by the Holy Spirit.  Marzieh and Maryam were eventually acquitted of the charge of “anti-state activities” and released from prison, thanks in part to the efforts of members of One Free World International.

This is one little incident reported in the book Freedom Fighter*, written by Majed El Shafie, the founder of One Free World International.  The book gives a brief account of El Shafie’s own faith journey from Islam to Christianity and an overview of religious persecution in Egypt, China, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Majed El Shafie is a native of Egypt who converted to Christianity in 1998 at the age of 20.  A year later he was arrested, beaten and tortured, resisting all attempts to force him to name his fellow believers.  He escaped to Israel and in 2002 was granted political asylum in Canada.  He is now a Canadian citizen and has spoken on religious freedom issues to committees of the Canadian Parliament and the U.S. Congress.

El Shafie has led delegations to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, meeting government officials to press for an end to persecution of religious minorities.  In a few cases of severe persecution, One Free World International** has been able to help individuals escape to Canada.  The book contains an endorsement by the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

I am afraid that we do not value highly enough the religious freedom we enjoy in countries like Canada.  This freedom is a direct result of the Christian belief that religious faith is not a matter of nationality, culture, tradition or family, but of personal choice.  There have been “Christian nations” in history who tolerated only one version of Christianity and persecuted all others, but this was always a perversion of the true Christian faith.  From its apostolic beginnings, an essential attribute of Christian faith has been that we can honour the Emperor without bowing down to his gods.

That belief is incomprehensible and intolerable in Islam.  Muslims believe in a God with whom they can have no personal relationship, who demands unquestioning obedience and who hates all “infidels” (non-Muslims).

El Shafie includes a section on Israel, where Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Baha’is can freely live their faiths.  Such a thing is unthinkable in the Palestinian territories.  Why then have our universities been hijacked by Palestinian sympathizers?  Not to mention the United Church of Canada?

Do we well when we buy Made in China consumer goods at Walmart and other stores?  Or clothing that is made in Pakistan?  I haven’t exactly decided to boycott products from those countries, but I will be more diligent in looking for labels that say Made in Canada, or Made in the USA, Brazil, France or any other country where I don’t have reason to fear that my dollars are helping support a regime that is systematically persecuting Christians.

Some readers may not feel comfortable with El Shafie’s form of activism, but Freedom Fighter is a wake-up call about religious persecution in the world today.

* Freedom Fighter, © 2012  Majed El Shafie , published by Destiny Image Publishers, Shippensburg PA

** www:onefreeworldinternational.org

 

Spiritual gangrene

I had known Roddy for years; he had given true direction and support in the early years of my Christian life.  Over the years, when problems arose in the church, he seemed to have clear discernment to clear the fog of confusion and bring peace in the storm.

Now I was beginning to notice things about Roddy that shook my confidence in him.  He seemed to assume that he was always right and had no need to consult the congregation or the other ministers before making decisions.

I made a special point once of asking him about the time he announced the decision the congregation was about to make before we had even discussed it.  He laughed it off.  Then he told me that other ministers did not listen to the people as they should, so people from all over called him because he would listen to them.  That seemed odd.  From what I was seeing, it did not seem that Roddy listened to anything that did not glorify Roddy.

Is there anything more painful than watching a beloved member of the body of Christ slide into apostasy?  That is what happened to Roddy.  He was used mightily by the Holy Spirit in his ministry and when personal idiosyncrasies manifested themselves we all shrugged them off.  In time, his ministry became ever more of Roddy and less of the Holy Spirit.  Discerning when the Holy Spirit finally departed was difficult, as Roddy retained all his charm and confidence.  He was eventually excommunicated, yet insisted all the while that he had a direct line to God and those who didn’t believe him were deceived.

We have made many attempts to help Roddy.  He weaves and twists the words that we say into something completely different from what we intended.  He has become a comforter of those who believe themselves misunderstood and mistreated, and denies many fundamental truths he once taught so clearly.

“And their word will eat as doth a canker” (2 Timothy 2:17).  Canker is an old English word meaning something that causes rot or decay or that destroys by a gradual eating away.  In this passage it is a translation of the Greek word gangraina, from which comes the English word gangrene.  False and deceptive teaching is like gangrene in the body of Christ.  The poison flows through the blood stream and will infect the whole body if the infected limb is not cut off.

There is this one difference between gangrene in our physical body and gangrene in the body of Christ.  If our leg needs to be amputated because of gangrene, we will be without that leg for the rest of our life.  However, in the spiritual body, there is always the possibility that the amputated member can come to Christ for cleansing and healing and then be attached once more to the body.  There will be no scar as a result of that re-attachment to continually remind the body of the former corruption of that member.  That is the hope that we still have for Roddy, the reason that we still try to deal with him in love and compassion.

Please note that Roddy is a fictional name and the details presented here are a composite of several individuals I have known over the years.

Maybe snow isn’t so bad, after all

Where I live we suffered through a long winter and a spring that progressed at a barely discernible pace.   The weather always gives us something to talk about here in Saskatchewan, mostly in a worried or complaining tone, but summer did eventually show up, just as it always has.

Now we are in those glorious days where the sunshine never seems to end.  The sun rises at 5 AM and sets at 9 PM.   The birds start singing at 4 and don’t stop until 10.  And we still have a month to go until the longest day.

Meanwhile, we hear that Gander, Newfoundland, at the far east end of Canada, had a freak snowstorm Monday, dumping 60 cm of heavy white stuff.  For those who don’t speak metric, that is a whole two feet.  Those poor people!

Then we heard of the tornado in Oklahoma – homes, schools, a hospital reduced to rubble, many lives lost.  That puts a different light on our little woes.  No lives were lost in Gander, all the buildings are still standing.  The snow will soon be only a memory and life will go on as usual.

The worst tornado in Saskatchewan history, the worst in all of Canada, happened in 1912 in Regina.  The funnel cloud went through downtown and a large residential area, causing immense amounts of damage and taking 28 lives.  We have never had anything like it in the 100 years that followed.  Last year we had 33 tornadoes in our province, a record.  Most of them were small and occurred in places where they did no property damage.  There have been no lives lost in Saskatchewan due to tornadoes for many years.

I suppose that comes from living in a more northern climate, where the heat does not build up to the intensity it does in places like Oklahoma.  Maybe snow isn’t so bad after all.

I think we had better stop complaining about the weather we have here and start praying for all those in Oklahoma, and elsewhere, who have lost homes and loved ones.  May God grant a special grace through the coming days.

Further thoughts on Pentecost

I used to think that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in visible form as tongues of fire while they were gathered in the upper room.  This impression may have come from a Bible story book, a Sunday School lesson or some other illustration.  It seems a common impression.

I now have serious doubts about that picture.  For one thing, Acts 1:15 tells us that the number of disciples wan one hundred and twenty.  Was there an upper room somewhere with enough room for such a crowd?  There were women in that number.  Does it seem likely that a mixed group of men and women would gather in the living quarters of the apostles?  (Verse 13).  If they were somewhere in a residential area, how did a crowd of thousands suddenly gather around them?

The gospel of Luke ends with these words: “And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.”  (Luke 23:43).  Acts 2:46 says: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”  Their meeting place was in the temple, not the upper room.

I think the problem was that I understood the temple to consist only of the building where the sacrifices and ceremonies took place.  I now understand that there was a huge walled courtyard around three sides of this building and this courtyard was considered part of the temple.  Other groups met for prayer in the courts of the temple, benches were provided for such meetings.  No doubt the disciples designated a certain place in the courts as their meeting place.

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1).  The wording here is so close to Luke 23:43 and Acts 2:46 that there should be little doubt the place where they were gathered “with one accord” was the temple.  This explains how it was possible for a crowd to gather around them almost immediately.

There is significance also in that the birth of the church, the new people of God, took place in the holy place of the old people of God.  This temple would be destroyed before many more years had passed, but the people of God would continue to exist, in a new form.

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come” (Acts 2:20).  Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke understand Peter’s use of this prophecy from Joel to refer to the eclipse of the light of the Old Covenant kingdom.  Both the civil and the sacred light of the Jewish nation were about to be extinguished, and the light of the gospel would shine over all the world.

Pentecost

This is Pentecost Sunday.  What is it all about?  The conception among non-Christians is that this day commemorates the day when the original disciples began making incoherent noises and blamed it on the Holy Spirit.

Before we get into what really happened on that day, let’s look at the historic background.  It begins with that first Passover in Egypt, the exodus of the descendants of Jacob (the children of Israel), and the crossing of the Red Sea.  Seven weeks later they gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai as God descended in fire on the mountain and called Moses to come up the mountain to speak with Him.  Then God spoke the Ten Commandments in a voice that caused the mountain to shake.  This day was ever after commemorated as the feast of weeks (a week of weeks), and later was called Pentecost (fifty days) in Greek.

The giving of the law transformed the descendants of Jacob into the people of God.  God wrote the law on tablets of stone; those tablets were placed in the Ark of the Covenant which eventually was placed in the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple.

At the dawn of the New Testament era the tablets of stone had long ago disappeared and the worship and religion of the Children of Israel had become corrupted.  God’s only Son, the long anticipated Messiah came into the world and gave His life on the cross as the true Lamb of God just before the Passover.  Then He completed the victory over sin and Satan by rising from the dead.

On the day of Pentecost, God descended once more in a visible fire – tongues of fire that appeared on the heads of the disciples.  The disciples then began to speak to the Israelites around them in intelligible languages, languages which they had never learned or spoken before but which were fully intelligible to the hearers.

This was a sensational happening and thousands of people gathered in amazement.  But the real miracle, the real significance of Pentecost, was the giving of the Law – not on tablets of stone this time, but on the hearts of the believers.  The prophets had long foretold such a happening and this is the true significance of Pentecost, not the outward signs and wonders but the transformed hearts.  This event transformed the frightened, demoralized disciples into the people of God, bold and fearless men who scattered in every direction from Jerusalem and “turned the world upside down.”

It is clear from the account in the Book of Acts that the disciples were speaking real languages that were understood by others.  The Apostle Paul also understood speaking in tongues to be real languages, since he gave instructions that no one should speak in tongues in church unless there was someone who would interpret.

The apostle gives three clear guidelines in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 concerning speaking in tongues in church.  First, no more than two or three should speak in an unknown tongue, each in turn.  Second, if there is no one to interpret, then those who would speak in another tongue should be silent.  Third, women are not permitted to speak in church.  This last rule may have a wider application, but the apostle most certainly meant it to apply to speaking in tongues.

The Apostle Paul did not condemn speaking in tongues, gave no commandment to cease and desist, he just gave three easily understood rules to govern the practice of speaking in tongues, and this seems to have been pretty much the end of speaking in tongues in the early church.

What we need today is not a revival of speaking in tongues.  That would be to value the package more highly than the contents.  What we truly need is a revival of Holy Spirit-filled Christians with the Law of God engraved on their hearts.

Post script to “Things that go bump in the night”

We didn’t just go to the city to escape the skunk smell; my wife had a doctor’s appointment.  It just so happened that my cousin Ted’s wife had an appointment in the same office at the same time.  She was accompanied by a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter.  Chris shared our tale of woe.

Cousin Ted called the next morning.  “Say Bob, we found a dead skunk and we dropped it off in your yard.  Did you find it?”

“So that’s what happened!”

Well no, I don’t believe that’s what happened.  But it will make a good story for the next family gathering: “Did you hear what Ted did to us?”

Our son-in-law told us we could gladly have come to their place in the middle of the night.  We appreciate the offer, but wonder if anyone would have gotten any sleep.

Our mobile home has an addition which includes our bedroom and bathroom.  The initial cloud of odour drifted into this area too, but once it had dissipated, this area has been odour free.

Things that go bump in the night

We were late getting to bed Wednesday night.  I was just brushing my teeth at midnight when I heard bumping and thumping coming from underneath our mobile home, accompanied by the terrified squeals of a small animal.  The commotion lasted a minute or two, then all was quiet.  In the quiet there came first a whiff, then the overpowering odour of skunk rising through the floor.

We opened all the windows, turned on the ceiling fans and a couple of air cleaners, and lit some candles.  We wandered around the yard, contemplated sleeping in the car, wondered if we should wake our children and claim the spare bedroom in their home.  Finally, at 2:00 AM we settled down on the bed in our spare bedroom where a fresh breeze was coming in the windows.  We fell asleep, then at a quarter to four I awoke and realized the breeze was much fainter and the smell much stronger.

I got up and searched the internet for help.  I came across a suggestion that placing bowls of vinegar around the house would absorb the smell.  I found the vinegar jug, poured vinegar into small bowls and placed them through the house.  Then I got a blanket and laid down in the recliner and got a couple more hours sleep.  In the morning I sprayed Febreze® air freshener in the areas where the odour seemed the strongest, then we left to spend the day in the city.

Now let’s back up a couple weeks.  I noticed a hole dug through the gravel banked against the trailer skirting on the north side of our home.  I scraped the gravel back into place, wondering if the culprit was a gopher, or perhaps a skunk.  The hole was promptly opened again.  Then Angus, our black Siamese cat began appearing in our house without being let in through the door.  It didn’t take long to figure out that he would run down the hole, travel half the length of the trailer in the dark, then come up through the hole where the water pipes come up and from there enter the house through the bathroom cabinet in the central bathroom.  However, was he the one who had dug the hole in the first place?

I placed a squared off block of wood over the hole.  The next morning there was a hole at the end of the block and Angus was appearing in the house again without being let in.  He appeared quite proud of his ingenuity.  We were still wondering if Angus was the one doing the digging, and what to do about it, when we found out the hard way that a skunk had also discovered the underside of our mobile home.

The question now is, who was the attacker?  In our wanderings of the yard that night, we saw that the hole had been freshly enlarged by some digging creature.  The two main killers of skunks are automobiles and great horned owls, neither of them having a sense of smell.  Both are frequently seen and heard on and around our yard, yet I can’t imagine either going down that hole.

The next list of suspects is coyotes, foxes, badgers and bobcats.  We don’t have bobcats around here, cougars maybe, but not bobcats.  We hear coyotes howling every evening, and have seen foxes as close as a mile away.  Yet I believe a badger is the most likely culprit.

We have slept in our own bedroom the past two nights, and slept well.  The odour has largely dissipated by now.  I suspect the open windows and ceiling fans did more good than anything else.  The bowls of vinegar remain in every room.  I don’t know if they have done any good or not, but the odour of vinegar is vastly preferable to the odour of skunk.

The second advent

In the hush of the silent midnight
Shall the cry of His coming be?
When the day of the Lord’s appearing
Shall flash over earth and sea?

Shall it be at the mornings awaking,
And the beams of the golden sun
Grow pale and be quenched forever
When his journey is just begun?

We know not, we dream not, the hour;
But we know that the time must be
When earth, with its clouds and shadows,
Will shrink, and tremble, and flee;

Will shrink to the deepest centre,
And render before His throne,
The Jewels the Lord will gather,
The Gems that He calls His own.

There, bright in heaven’s noonday splendour,
And robed like the dazzling snow,
The saints to their many mansions,
The chosen and blest, shall go.

And songs of angelic gladness
Be borne on celestial air
To welcome the mighty gathering,
The throng, that shall enter there.

And, oh! in that awful parting,
That day of unchanging doom,
When earth shall give up her millions,
And empty her every tomb,

May we find in the Judge a Saviour,
A Friend whom we know and love,
And be bidden by Him to enter
The courts of His house above.

-Annie Louisa Walker (later Coghill), 1861

Her children arise up, and call her blessed

“I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: and I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.  Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found” (Ecclesiastes 7:25-28).

What is Solomon talking about here?  Why does he appear to have so much hatred for women?

Ah, but remember that Solomon really had a thousand wives.  This sounds more like a confession than a diatribe against all womankind.  Counting his wives one by one up to a thousand, he realizes that he cannot fully trust even one of them.  They have led him astray.

Solomon sounds an altogether different note when he gives advice to other men: “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:9).  “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” (Proverbs 5:18).  It seems that now in his old age, Solomon looks back and regrets the day he took a second wife.  He had been happy with the wife of his youth, whatever possessed him to think that he would be happier with a second wife?  And a third, a fourth, all the way up to a thousand?

In another place, Solomon pronounces a blessing upon marriage: “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD” (Proverbs 18:22).  These are not the words of a man who believed that women are inherently evil.  Solomon discovered, and demonstrated for our benefit if we will receive it, that multiple marriages do not multiply the blessing.  Having more than one wife had filled his family life with jealousy, intrigues and disappointment.

There is some mystery about the author of Proverbs 31.  The chapter begins: “The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.  What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?  Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”

Who was king Lemuel?  Archeologists and historians have found no trace of a king by this name.  Lemuel means “devoted to God.”  The preponderant opinion of rabbinical commentators, and of Christian commentators, is that this points to Solomon himself.  The first nine verses of this chapter then are the instructions that Bathsheba gave to her son and that he remembered all his days and wrote down for our instruction.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.  The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.  She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life” (Proverbs 31:10-12).  It is not altogether clear if verses 10 to 31 are a continuation of Bathsheba’s teaching, or an addition by Solomon himself.  In any case, it was Solomon who compiled the Book of Proverbs and decided to close the book with a paean to godly women.

“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.  Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.  Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:28-31).

Mother’s Day is a day set apart for children and husbands to arise and bless and praise the mothers in our families.  I trust this is not the only day that we do this.

Too big to be of use to God

A group of ministers met with a fellow minister who had been highly respected and useful in the service of our Lord.  They had a disturbing message for him: he had lost the spiritual vitality and clarity that he once had.  They advised him to cease preaching for a time and earnestly seek a renewal of the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.  The brother was dumbfounded; he had no idea what was wrong.

He asked brethren near and far to help him, but their counsel did not seem to touch his inner need.  Finally, in desperation, he asked his nine-year old daughter: “Do you have any idea what is wrong with Daddy?”

“Yes, I think I do,” she answered, “I think you are just too big a man.”

Instantly, he knew that was the answer.  Without realizing it, he had begun to feel that the success of his ministry was his own work.  As he had become bigger in his own eyes, he had blocked the light of the gospel from shining out to those he was ministering, too.  When he humbled himself and became small, his ministry again witnessed to the greatness of God.

John the Baptist, speaking of Jesus, said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

This is a hard lesson.  It is all the harder because the lesson does not want to stay learned.  My ego is not like a bicycle or car tire: it is self-inflating.  Time after time the Lord has deflated my ego, so that I could be small enough for Him to use.  There is such a feeling of liberty when a puffed-up ego does not hinder my life.  Yet I soon find that it is beginning to puff up again.

I am beginning to realize that there is no point wishing for my ego to have a blowout that will render it beyond repair.  The only workable option is daily self-denial and cross-bearing.  In other words, a daily deflating of the ego, for it is when we are small and weak that the blessings of God can manifest themselves in our lives.

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (1 Corinthians 12:9-10).