Review: Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents

Rod Dreher. Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. New York, NY: Sentinel, September 29, 2020. 256 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

4 out of 5

When Totalitarian persecutions against Christians finally arrive in the West, how will you as a Christian respond and have your faith still survive?  This book explores this question with a journalistic study of how those who are religious survive with their faith in Communist Eastern Europe during the days of the Cold War with lessons learned that’s important for Christians in the West to learn about.  Before you think this book is irrelevant and conspiracy theory the author argues that there’s a rise in the West of softer form of Totalitarianism than past secular tyranny like Marxists states but still there’s a rise of society marginalizing, canceling and attacking conservative Christians with historic and biblical moral values and ethics.  For these reasons this book became one of the important talked about book in 2020 and relevant in a post-2020 world.

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Praise and Prayer Request Update: Persecuted Pastors Released

A few days ago we posted Pray for a Persecuted Church Right now.  Just as a quick update all the pastors are released from government detention.

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Persecution and the Believer Part 2

Quick update to yesterday’s Pray for a Persecuted Church Right now: This is now day 5 of the pastors being detained.  Please pray for other Christians too since their phones have been taken by authorities which the authorities can reconstruct other Christian leaders and churches.  These are perilous times for Christians in that country in East Asia.

(For part 1 check out Persecution and the Believer Part 1)

Establish the need: Have you thought about Christian persecution?

Purpose: Today we shall see four more of eight truths the Bible teaches about Christians and persecutions so that you be strong in Christ when the time comes.

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Persecution and the Believer Part 1

Quick update to yesterday’s Pray for a Persecuted Church Right now: The authorities have let go of others but the four elders/pastors detained from this persecuted church have been punished and sent to jail for two weeks.  Updates will probably be delayed because of security concern.  This post is timely and relevant, as it is about what the Bible teaches about persecution and believers.

Establish the need: Have you thought about Christian persecution?

 

Purpose: Today we shall see four of eight truths the Bible teaches about Christians and persecutions so that you be strong in Christ when the time comes.

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Quick Devotional from Matthew 5:10 (Observation from the Greek)

This is from my daily Greek exercise of sight reading some time ago, courtesy of Vincent S Artale Jr.

Our text is from the Greek translation of Matthew 5:10.  Here is my translation:

“μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης,

Blessed are those who are persecuted on account of righteousness 

ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. ”

because the kingdom of heaven is theirs

Here are some observations:

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Quick Devotional from 2 Thessalonians 3:1 (Observation from the Greek)

This is from my daily Greek exercise of sight reading many months ago, courtesy of Vincent S Artale Jr.

Our text is from the Greek translation of 1 Thessalonians 5:16.  Here is my translation:

“SENTENCE 3 [TP Τὸ λοιπὸν TP] προσεύχεσθε ‹ ἀδελφοί › περὶ ἡμῶν
Finally brethren pray for us

SUB-POINT ἵνα [TP ὁ λόγος τοῦ κυρίου TP] τρέχῃ καὶ δοξάζηται καθὼς ‹+ καὶ πρὸς
in order that the word of the Lord will spread and be glorified just as also for

ὑμᾶς +›”
you

Here are some observations:

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Pray for the Persecuted Church: Arrested because Jesus is the reason for the treason

With all the news about Christians being persecuted, where Pastors are being arrested, members disappearing, churches being destroyed, even believers being killed, let us think of them.  Pray for them.  Think of their plights and their family suffering.

Our church this Sunday was led to really pray for the believers in difficult situations.  Especially for those who are persecuted by the government in which believers have been arrested or disappeared because Jesus is the reason for their treason.

As Bibleguy shared from Hebrews 13:3: “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.”

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Can A Muslim Leave Islam?

What happens to Muslims who wish to embrace another religion?

Those who turn their back on Islam are to be executed.  This is confirmed by the words and deeds of Muhammad.

The Quran:

Qur’an (4:89) – “They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them”

Qur’an (9:11-12) – “But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion. We detail Our revelations for a people who have knowledge. And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief – Lo! they have no binding oaths – in order that they may desist.”

The Hadith:

Bukhari (52:260) – “…The Prophet said, ‘If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.’ “  Note that there is no distinction as to how that Muslim came to be a Muslim.

Bukhari (83:37) – “Allah’s Apostle never killed anyone except in one of the following three situations: (1) A person who killed somebody unjustly, was killed (in Qisas,) (2) a married person who committed illegal sexual intercourse and (3) a man who fought against Allah and His Apostle and deserted Islam and became an apostate.”

Bukhari (84:57) – [In the words of] “Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'”

Bukhari (89:271) – A man who embraces Islam, then reverts to Judaism is to be killed according to “the verdict of Allah and his apostle.”

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Further reading

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Religion of Peace: Beheading of little girls

Re-posting it from December 1st 2006.

A group of Indonesian men ambushed four girls (men vs girls) as they walked to their Christian school. One of the three survived with serious wounds. The school had been burned down during a previous round of sectarian conflict and later rebuilt.

The police said the heads of the three victims were discovered by local residents some distance from the bodies. The surviving student told the police that there had been six assailants wearing masks and black shirts. The victims were identified as Yarni Sambue (15) Interesia Morangke (16) and Alfita Paulina (19).

The survivor has been identified as Noviana Malewa, who is currently in intensive care at a nearby hospital. The bodies of the girls were left at the site of the attack near a cocoa plantation. The heads were found at separate locations two hours later by residents. One of the heads was found near a church.

They have found the men responsible for the beheadings. Three Muslim men have been charged in the beheadings of three girls in an Indonesian province filled with sectarian tension. More news here, here and here.

Update: The “three Christian high school girls who were beheaded” was a Ramadan “trophy” by Indonesian militants who conceived the idea after a visit to Philippines jihadists, a court heard yesterday.

The girl’s severed heads were dumped in plastic bags in their village in Indonesia’s strife-torn Central Sulawesi province, along with a handwritten note threatening more of such attacks.

The note read: “Wanted: 100 more Christian heads, teenaged or adult, male or female…“

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Arrested for Reading Scripture in Public (California)

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Richard Wurmbrand

Richard Wurmbrand was a Lutheran minister in Romania and the founder of Voice of Martyrs. He is a criminal according to the atheistic-communistic Romanian government at that time. Wurmbrand’s crime was preaching Biblical Christianity. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison the first time and 25 years the second time.  Learn more about Richard from Tortured for Christ. They will sent you his book free of charge.

Contrary to everything in the above paragraph, we go to UCLA.

Communist UCLA professor who lives in Beverly Hills (did I say Beverly Hills?). He lives comfortably in the Hills, teaches at a state university and discipling the next generation of communist. The government is not making plans to arrest him, the US government had never sentenced him to prison for his communist or atheistic beliefs or told to stop propagating atheistic-communistic philosophy by the university board. Yet, this professor and his followers which spread all the way to the campus of Pasadena City College would condemned Christians and comparing Evangelical Christians to the infamous Westboro Baptist group who protest outside of military funerals or the Jesus Camp (summer charismatic camp).

Let’s compare Richard Wurmbrand’s atheistic-communistic tyrant and Westboro Baptist or the Jesus Camp group.

Almost no Evangelicals endorse the way Westboro Baptist protesting outside military funerals however, they do not propagate killing atheists or imprisoning atheists. The Jesus Camp which had been closed down indoctrinate children in moral values is said to be  extreme and a laughing tool. But what about Hitler’s Youth Camp or Putin’s Youth Camp.

Btw, for those who have visited UCLA campus, remember the two guys selling newsletter in the evening on Bruin walk? These two are communists and one works as an accountant. A communist who is an accountant? and communists selling newsletter? Communist making money through a capitalistic society and selling instead of sharing newsletter. Can communism stand on his own two feet? Francis Schaeffer’s quote is timeless, “feet planted in mid air.”

Richard Wurmbrand’s Testimony before US Senate Judiciary Committe-1966.

 

 

 

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Christians in Iran Arrested

These Christians were arrested in Iran.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elam Ministries reported that the Governor of Tehran has vowed to arrest more evangelical Christians. Armed, plain-clothes, special security officers forcefully entered the homes of Christians while they were asleep, and verbally and physically abused them. They were handcuffed and taken for interrogation. Among those arrested were five married couples. One couple was separated from their two-year old baby. Another couple was also forced to leave their baby that the mother was breastfeeding. A number of single young women were also among those taken.

The security forces broke into at least five such homes, ransacking them, taking personal possessions, changing the locks and placing a government seal on the door. Family members of these Christians have been called by the authorities and threatened and harassed. They were instructed to tell the Christians to surrender themselves. None of them have been granted any legal representation. No charges have been made, though it is clear that they were arrested for their active Christian faith. There has been a gross lack of due process. The government authorities have not provided any written documents as to the reason for the arrests, any record of the items confiscated, and family members are not allowed to visit the detained.

The recent speech made byAyatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic republic of Iran, for the first time, warned his followers of the dangers of the rapid growth and expansion of home-based churches as the threat to the Islamic regime.

There is a great need for Christians to pray for these Christians who were arrested in Iran.

More news,

• CBN News
• Crosswalk
• Assist News Service
• Islam Tribune
• UPI
• FCNN

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Persecution Not Too Far Off

I believe the legalization of homosexual marriage and future laws pushing the homosexual agenda will be the tell-tale signs. Hate speech criteria and freedom of speech restrictions will mark just the beginning.

I thought I’d bookmark what certainly won’t be last hostile attack against the Christian faith:
“Burning Man suspect held in Grace Cathedral arson attempt”
“Another Church Under Attack In San Francisco”

Some good sermons to listen to:

• By John MacArthur
  • “A Nation Abandoned by God” Part 1 Part 2
  • “God’s Word to An Ungodly Society”
    • “Isaiah: A Godly Man in a Nation of Crisis” Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
    • “Warning to An Apostate Nation” Part 1 Part 2
• By John Piper
  • “Discerning the Will of God” Part 1 Part 2 – Concerning Homosexuality and Marriage
• Al Mohler
  • Homosexual “Marriage”: A Tragic Oxymoron–Biblical and Cultural Reflections

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