Vox Lucens

Last time, the call came bright and early on a Saturday morning.  This time, I couldn’t go to sleep.

It is very strange for me to lie in bed and not be able to sleep.  I push hard enough that by the time I get to my pillow, I’m ready to use it.  But there was a night last week that was different, when the plight of persecuted Christians, specifically in Iran, spoke to my heart so loudly that I just couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps that’s the way it often is - easier to hear the calling to wake up than the calling to stay awake.  Bursts of energy are so much easier than sustained, focused ministry.  But sometimes the calling is simply to stay awake.

So I prayed, and I wrote, and the results of the latter were published by the great folks at Assist News on Saturday.  It is my hope that I will hear the results of the former in eternity.

Targets of a Dictator

A week and a half ago, I woke up earlier than normal for a Saturday morning, glanced at my Blackberry, and knew that my day was not going to be ordinary.

“God bless you, my brother is among the persons arrested, how can you help?”

This was a direct message from a man I met via Twitter, and knew to be a Christian living in the Middle East.  And I knew instantly what story he was referring to - a story of the arrest of multiple Christian pastors in the country of Iran.

My first thought was to want to help, but how?  I indicated my willingness, waited, and prayed.  I received a phone call from Turkey, from my Twitter friend, updating me on the situation, on his brother, Pastor Behrouz, being held in an undisclosed location, for an undisclosed amount of time, for “crimes” that were undisclosed but easily guessed - evangelization and apostasy.

A couple of days later another direct message came:

“They have been sentenced Thursday for apostasy, it means to death according the shariah”

I will admit that I had no idea what to do.  One thinks of these things in theory, but when they arrive - what is the right course of action?  And yet, though I did not know what to do, I knew that I needed to do something.  So I began to e-mail - advocacy groups, news organizations, anyone I could think of.

And the amazing thing is this - when there’s a need, people respond.  I was, frankly, amazed at the response I got.  Now, I wish I could tell you that the story was over, but it is not.  Wheels are turning, but Pastor Behrouz remains in prison, subjected to immense suffering, and not to mention the threat of death.

I was asked to write an article for Assist News, which was published last night, and I share for you here.  What struck me as I wrote, though, was the hope embodied by this situation.  Hope not necessarily in staying alive, though there is hope for that - no, the deeper hope comes from the chance to die.  Philippians 1:21 drove this home, where Paul says, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.“

I ask not, friends, that you read this and weep.  I ask that you read it, and pray.

Fear Not them which Kill the Body

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Update:  This just in from Compass Direct News.

Iran Detains Christians without Legal Counsel

…I can at least pray, and ask you to do the same.

Remember has a team leaving for the Middle East this month - pray for them!

I know it’s a day late, but in an attempt to remedy the appalling lack of posting, I thought I would share these thoughts.

More coming.  It’s been a crazy, wonderful couple of weeks since last I updated…

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It’s Thanksgiving, and I would like to thank God for the chance to see one of His most amazing gifts at work.  Truly, the Body of Christ, the Living Church, is an incredible gift that we often forget to thank Him for.

We can, and do, pray for them – that they would remain strong, that they would be protected and covered with His grace.  Those intercessions are vital, as you well know, but let’s not forget to combine them with the thanksgiving that is due.

Maybe that sounds strange, but it’s Scriptural!

The precious saints of the persecuted Body of Christ are lights in a dark world.  They are pillars that stand though the storm rage about them.  To all those around them – to believer and unbeliever alike – they are proof of God’s faithfulness in the midst of suffering and pain.  Have we stopped to thank God for them?

In this season of Thanksgiving, let’s praise God for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Let us thank Him for their prayers for us, for their testimony of faithfulness, and for the chance that we have to minister both with and for them.

I am reminded of the words of Paul in Ephesians:

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

I was asked to preach at the Perry Alliance Church a couple of months ago, as that church seeks to pray for suffering saints on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I accepted most willingly. I knew early on what my text would be – a Scripture I have been meditating on for some time – but I did not know just how appropriate it would be – not just for the IDOP, but also for the Sunday after election.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2

The General Principle

If there has one thing I have noticed living in the deep South, it is how my accent can change based on what I hear around me. Sometimes I put on the drawl on purpose, of course, but sometimes it just happens – what I hear around me tends to influence how I talk. I can see that same principle acted out all around me, and I bet that you have seen it in your own life. If you admire someone, as you focus on them you tend to become like them.

This principle, true in the physical realm, is even more true in the spiritual, as John documents in the above verse. Though we may be sons already by the work of saving grace, we are not perfected until we see him. That perfection is discussed in much greater detail in the next chapter, but this is where it begins – we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. There’s a cause and effect here: seeing Him as He is causes us to be like Him.

The opposite is also true. We can focus ourselves on evil, or even on good things not of God. Israel, for instance, had a history of doing just that, and getting themselves into trouble – in the wilderness, remember how they focused on the leeks, onions, and garlic that they had in Egypt? In I Samuel, remember how they demanded a king so that they could be like all the other nations they were seeing around them? Their focus, off of God, led them to admire what was in reality far less than God’s best.

So then, we see that both in Scripture and in practical application, that what we focus on goes a long way towards determining who we are, and what we do.

Two Stories – and Two Applications

Guiding Our Prayers for the Persecuted

Just a few weeks ago, violence erupted in Orissa, a state in eastern India. The violence was sparked by the assassination of a Hindu holy man, or swami. Now if anyone deserved assassination, it was this swami. For years, he has been working with ultra-fundamentalist Hindus to force low-caste converts to Christianity back into the Hindu fold. He personally sparked numerous instances of violence against Christians during the years he was in power.

I am not aware of any Christian, however, that would argue that the fact he “deserved” death gave them permission to kill him. And they did not kill him; he was murdered by a Maoist group from Tibet.

That fact did not stop the Hindus from rioting in response, however, carrying out false “retribution” against innocent Christians. Dozens of Christians were killed. Homes were burned, families split apart, and unspeakable atrocities committed. The violence continues to this day.

Because of the persecution, Christians have been left with a choice. The Maoist groups are still there, seeking to ally themselves with Christians. They offer the false hope of Maoist violence. And focusing on the violence leads to only one logical consideration; in the face of such tragedy, why not join the violence?

But focusing on the violence isn’t the answer. As I have met Christians living in oppression, I have marveled at the way that they have risen above the circumstances of their faith to focus on the author and finisher of their faith. But you can imagine how hard it must be for a Christian in Orissa – and so many other places – to take their eyes off of the pain and put them on Jesus.

That, I believe, should be our first request for our persecuted brothers and sisters: that they may be like Him, because they have seen Him as He is.

Lessons from Uzziah

Uzziah was a great king. He reigned for 52 years over the kingdom of Judah, and is one of few of whom it was said, “he did that was right in the eyes of the Lord.” We are told of many of the great things that he did, such that he became strong and spread his name abroad by the things that he did – because he was “marvelously helped.”

But Uzziah was not perfect; in his strength he became proud and usurped the role of the priests by burning incense in the temple. His punishment was swift and sure.  Instantaneously he went from admired king to outcast leper.

And then he died.

Can you imagine being a Judean in those days? The king that made your nation great is dead, but dead only after suddenly and dramatically failing in his leadership. His untested son is next in line for the throne. Just three years ago, the death of Jereboam II in neighboring Israel plunged that nation into anarchy; how will Judah respond to these challenges? Indeed, will you even survive them?

The year that King Uzziah died could only have been a time of turmoil for every citizen of Judah, a time of doubt and fear and depression. The greatness of Judah, the peace of Judah, the stability and protection of Judah all hung in the balance.

It is with that background that we turn to Isaiah 6, a chapter probably familiar to all of us.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord…

In spite of all the turmoil, Isaiah saw the Lord. He saw past all of the fright, the uncertainty, and the desperation on the physical level to see something so much greater on a spiritual plane – the glory of our all-powerful God. The picture of Judah that he saw was not pretty at all, as we see later in Isaiah 6, but it didn’t matter in the presence of God. In seeing the Lord, Isaiah found both peace and a calling.

I should note that I do not mean this application in the political sense, at least not entirely. If your politics are like mine, you are undoubtedly dreading the next four years. But who we elect is more of a symptom than anything else, and the answer is not electing “the other guy.” The answer, in fact, is not in any human at all.

The answer is in seeing the Lord. Where are we focusing?

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

For the past couple of years, since the 2005 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the decades-long civil war, north and south Sudan have lived at relative peace with one another.  That is not to say that the nation has been peaceful; the genocide in Darfur is ongoing, and in the north/south border areas Islamic militias work regular acts of violence, but there has been no all-out, large-scale violence.

But the more news I hear out of Sudan, and specifically out of South Kordofan - the north/south border state that I have visited twice - the more worried I am.  I say “worried,” but that word isn’t strong enough.  I’m scared.  Scared for the people I know there, for the pastors that are already the targets of localized violence, for the ongoing work of Christ throughout the Nuba tribes, for the existing widows and the widows-to-be, for the generation of children that are only now barely becoming accustomed to peace.

There can be a lot of things that go into the rekindling of a civil war.  Political strife, religious disagreement, interpersonal quarrels, even tribal feuding that goes back centuries are all present in this state.  The Nuba tribespeople feel abandoned, not just by their central government, but by the southern SPLM, who they feel have used them as a bargaining chip in an attempt to control oil-rich territories in the east.  Even within the Nuba, individual tribes fight with each other constantly, the ongoing expression of centuries of infighting.  And always, sometimes just under the surface, sometimes above, but always there, is the inevitable tension between Sharia and freedom of religion, between NCP and SPLM - between Muslim and Christian.

Last time I was in South Kordofan, our team met with the deputy governor, a soft-spoken Christian man affiliated with the SPLM.  (Under the peace agreement, power in South Kordofan is split between the Muslim NCP governor and the Christian SPLM deputy governor.)  We talked about our desire to minister there in a variety of ways, and were blessed by his spirit.  Little did we know - in fact, I didn’t know until reading a report last week - that just months before we were there, he had been the target of an assassination attempt.  His story highlights the nature of the situation in Sudan, because the assassination attempt was not a sniper with a gun, or even a grenade lobbed into a car.  No, the would-be assassin handed a grenade to a child and told the youngster to take it up to the stage.  The ensuing explosion, while it didn’t kill the deputy governor, ripped the child’s hand to shreds.

South Kordofan just may be the spark that reignites the smoldering memories of all-out war.  Some are even calling it “The Next Darfur,” but unlike that tragedy, this one has the potential to plunge the entire nation into violence.

Pray for Sudan.

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Rising Animosity in Central State Could Fuel Conflict

And if you have more time, read the following report.  It’s long, but well worth the read.

Sudan’s Southern Kordofan Problem: The Next Darfur?