Baptists Committed to World Evangelism

2 Corinthians 12:7 “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” This is a pretty unique verse.  Paul says that God gave him a thorn.  When I think of thorns, I do not usually think of a gift.  As a boy playing in the woods, I remember getting thorns in my flesh, and I was not thinking how wonderful it was to have those thorns

2 Corinthians 4:8 “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are preplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” God has a purpose for suffering. God uses suffering to cause the old man to die and the new man to be made alive. Suffering breaks the power of our flesh and causes us to live in the power of Christ. Suffering can be our greatest enemy or our greatest asset.

1 Corinthians 6:7 “Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another.  Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” One of the problems in the Corinthians church was that they were taking their problems with each other to courts and before unsaved judges.

Original Source – Jumma Prayer (MNN) — Though Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, Christian and Muslim neighbors mostly live in peace. However, Greg Musselman of Voice of the Martyrs, Canada  visited on reports of militant Muslims creating animosity: “We’re hearing stories of churches being destroyed, hundreds of these militant Muslim mobs showing up in front of these churches and trying to shut them down, people beaten up, driven away and all that kind of thing. So, we wanted to go investigate.” Upon arrival, Musselman discovered these stories were true, especially in West Java, though persecution isn’t as blatant as in the past: “It’s not as intense as we’ve heard in the past. But there’s still this underlying persecution taking place to intimidate.” Despite the intimidation, at an underground Bible institute Musselman visited, nearly 70 percent of the students were once Muslim. Now, he said, we need to band around these fellow believers: “If one part of the body suffers, then we all suffer

My wife had an interesting experience when she was in the grocery store the other day. A couple college students walked up to her in the paper-products aisle with Bibles in their hands and started to share their faith with her. Mormons, I think. Pretty standard form of ‘evangelism’: chattering on endlessly about some doctrine or other, with an aggressive search for assent tacked on at the end. ‘Do you believe

John 16:1 “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.  They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” Jesus gives the disciples and us some advance warning about what will happen to us as His followers.  He tells us that there will come a day that we will be greatly persecuted and our faith will be sorely tried.  It will get so back that we will be rejected by those who we think will accept us and when people kill us they will think they are doing God service. The reason that Christ give this warning to us is so that we will not be offended

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

The Freedom Scale 1 Freedom Scale 2 The Freedom Scale 3 The Freedom Scale 4 The Freedom Scale 5 There are a few keys to the long-term progress of these countries up the ladder of the Freedom Scale: 1. Bold National Believers For each level there will be different consquences but the need is for believers willing to die for their faith. If we will be faithful to teach the Word the disciples will grow in their boldness. We do not force or even push a disciple of Christ to take a public stand with his faith. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit must do the pushing.

The Freedom Scale 1 Freedom Scale 2 The Freedom Scale 3 The Freedom Scale 4 3- Algeria, Egypt, Jordan a. Stated religious freedom b. Discipleship: A believer is often known locally by family, friends, and others on a local level and many have taken a stand publically on a national level without any government persecution. c.

The Freedom Scale 1 Freedom Scale 2 The Freedom Scale 3 2- Morocco and Tunisia a. Feigned religious freedom b. Discipleship: A believer is sometimes known locally by family, friends, and others in his city as a Christian. He receives harassment but an “honor killing” would be prosecuted by the government.