The Red Letters Broke His Heart

Badi, a Muslim living in Libya, was given an English language Bible from a relative who did not read English and did not realize what he was giving Badi. Fortunately, Badi had learned to read English in school.

Badi soon learned that the red-lettered words in the Bible were the words of Jesus. His heart broke when he read the Sermon on the Mount in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and he soon came to revere the Word of God.

Badi studied his Bible, and he gained a deeper understanding of the faith about two years later when he met some foreign workers on a farm. He noticed that some of them were carrying Bibles, and they began to discuss Christ. The foreigners were Christians, and they invited him to attend church services with them.

When government officials discovered that Badi had become a Christian, he was arrested and imprisoned. He was charged with treason (!) rather than apostasy. Badi was beaten and tortured during his imprisonment. The pain was so severe that Badi wanted to die. But his torturers told him, "We won't kill you, because we want you to wish for death and not find it."

Badi survived and was released from prison six months later. He is now a follower of Jesus.

Recent news from post-Gaddafi Libya: one of the scattered Christians in Libya was arrested by rebels a few months ago. According to a friend, "they arrested him and beat him just a few days and released him. That is normal as a Christian in Libya. But the Gadhafi troops would kill him surely. The rebels would work with him quietly."

Pray for Badi for Libya's small indigenous church. Pray that the civil war and its aftermath will lead to new opportunities to advance the gospel.

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, November 2011)

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One Bible you can have, Two Bibles you cannot

Individual Christians have long suffered for their faith in Algeria, but not until 2006, when Algeria enacted a new religion law, did the government have the legal means to restrict the church.

"If they find you with Christian materials, they will arrest you immediately," Gerard* says. "One Bible, you can have. Two Bibles, you cannot have because the second one is clearly not yours. They say you are just trying to give it to someone else."

Gerard* was riding a bus that was stopped by police at a checkpoint. A policeman who searched Gerard's bag found his Bible-study book and began to curse him. "And I just told him, 'Ok, that is enough. This is my faith. This is what I believe.' He didn't beat me, but he spat on me," Gerard says. Gerard's faith has sustained him through multiple beatings for being a Christian, and he now sees this treatment as normal.

As the bus left the checkpoint and drove on, the other passengers began to verbally abuse Gerard. "All of them started to say bad things," he says, "and I hoped that long distance would finish soon. "The persecution is there, but the church is there no matter what happens."

Not a single church has been granted registration since the 2006 law's enactment, and in 2008, the government ordered the closure of 26 churches in Algeria's Kabyle region, where the majority of Christians live. In May 2011, authorities ordered seven more churches in Bejaia province to close for failure to comply with registration regulations.


Charred items pulled from burned
Tafat Church building in Tizi Ouzou.

 Instead of closing, however, the seven churches decided to continue meeting to test the government's resolve. "Many people are praying, and that is why the churches keep the doors open," says one Algerian Christian. In 2010, rather than wait on the government to close down a church, extremists chose to burn down the Tafat Church in Tizi Ouzou, also in the Kabyle region.

In this environment, many churches have begun to meet in the countryside, while others meet in homes where the walls have been removed to make room for worshipers.

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, November 2011)

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Liberal Academics Ignore the Most Ancient Account of Noah's Flood

Unknown to many today is the earliest Flood tablet ever found. It pre-dates the 5 written books of Moses by at least 800 years. It was discovered in the ancient Babylonian city of Nippur in the 1890s. The tablet was so encrusted that its value was not immediately recognized, but by 1909 Dr. Hermann Hilprecht had discerned the figures and translated the text. Given the catalogue designation CBM 13532, it dates from about 2200 B.C., or soon after the Flood itself. More importantly, while the differences between Genesis and Gilgamesh are striking, the similarities between Genesis and this tablet are obvious. There is no detail that differs from Genesis, and nothing extra is added.

Hilprecht’s translation reads as follows, with damaged sections reconstructed by Fritz Hommel and unreadable portions of the text noted:

The springs of the deep will I open. A flood will I send which will affect all of mankind at once. But seek thou deliverance before the flood breaks forth, for over all living beings, however many there are, will I bring annihilation, destruction, ruin. Take wood and pitch and build a large ship!….cubits be its complete height…. a houseboat shall it be, containing those who preserve their life….with a strong roofing cover it…. the ship which thou makest, take into it….the animals of the field, the birds of the air and the reptiles, two of each, instead of (their whole number)….and the family of the….¹

This clear text stands as both a confirmation of Scripture and a condemnation of liberal “scholarship.” It so clearly undermines the “critical” view that it never sees the light of day. Professor Hilprecht himself was hardly a defender of Scripture, yet he was a recognized expert in ancient languages. His translation originally caused quite a storm of controversy among academics, for it undercut their position that Genesis carries no authority, but no challenge was ever levied against his translation. Nevertheless, it remains hidden today. Few know of the tablet, or of its strong testimony to Scripture’s authority.

(excerpted from John D. Morris, Genesis, Gilgamesh, and an Early Flood Tablet, Acts & Facts, November 2011, Institute for Creation Research)

Marko comments: We have Dr. Bill Cooper to thank for rediscovering this tablet and Hilprecht's work. Cooper is a tireless investigator into historical truth and how it confirms the accuracy of Scripture. His tremendous work After the Flood, (available for free in an online edition), chronicles the early histories of northern Europe, and the striking echoes found there to the Table of Nations recorded in Genesis chapter 10. His new rediscovery demonstrates how liberal academics have once again selectively ignored this most priceless tablet, and steer people away from the historical truth of Scripture to sheer ignorance.

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Reference

1. Pinches, G. and F. Hommel. 1910. The Oldest Library in the World and the New Deluge Tablets. Expository Times. 21: 369. Pinches’ editorial marks were omitted for clarity.

Source: Dr. Bill Cooper, The Earliest Flood Tablet, Pamphlet 382, May 2011, published by the Creation Science Movement, Portsmouth, UK.

Watch and Pray as People around the World Come to Christ

"At the Global Media Outreach website, you will see a world map that pinpoints in real time the responses of people around the world who are visiting one of the evangelistic websites set up by Global Media Outreach. You may watch as a visitor in Libya comes to one of the sites and begins to read a gospel message. If this visitor prays to receive Christ, the color of the pinpoint changes from blue to yellow. If the person asks for follow up, the color immediately changes to red. (What a tool for intercessors to use for prayer!) Of the average of 150,000 visitors that come to a GMO related website every day, 25,000 pray to receive Christ, and 5,000 ask for follow up.

"A ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ called Map Factory. Led by mission strategist Christopher Deckert, the vision of Map Factory is to equip every ministry in the world with the ability to dynamically map the vision God has given them and the progress in seeing it fulfilled. High-end, commercial map servers can cost as much as $50,000 to deploy, plus the ongoing costs of programming and maintenance.

"Map Factory is raising the funds to provide this service to the missions community at a relatively low cost and recruiting computer volunteers to meet this need. (We would encourage our Mission Frontiers readers, who are interested in helping, to contact Campus Crusade’s Map Factory division and inquire how you may be able to contribute to this important new initiative. Chris can be contacted at cdeckert@ccci.org)

"Secular startup companies are currently attempting to provide location-based services to local and city governments to track crime, graphitti, road hazards, and weather related issues. Non-Government Organizations are utilizing simple, real-time mapping software to track disaster response, such as in the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. At a moment’s notice, on the ground responders are sharing, through their cell phones, the locations of needs and the type of assistance required. Software then presents a composite of those needs on a map to enable better coordination. Now picture the Church rallying together after the recent tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri using collaborative tools such as this. Or imagine a city that works together to plant churches and initiate outreaches in areas where crime databases tell us there is the greatest need.

"Today we have the opportunity to capture the big picture, as well as zoom in on the details of the unfinished task before us."

(for more, see David Taylor, Mapping the Unfinished Task, Mission Frontiers, November-December 2011)

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You're saying this Gospel is for Receiving, but not for Sharing?

In 1999 in Mozambique a group of sixty-five pastors and a handful of missionaries got together for several days to discuss how to overcome unhealthy dependency. During one of the presentations, they began to discuss when the Gospel was first preached in that region of their country. After some discussion the church leaders decided that the Gospel first came there about 1915. The next question was natural: “How many of your own missionaries have you sent out since that time?” The answer was, “None”.

I responded by saying, “So apparently this gospel is for receiving, but not for sharing. Is that right?”

The question I asked startled my translator to such an extent that he asked if he could speak with his fellow pastors. I agreed and stepped aside. The translator then suggested that they all needed to confess the sin of being receivers, rather than givers in relation to the Gospel. Before the conference ended, the sixty-five pastors appointed a committee to send out their first missionaries. They sent several workers to a ripe mission field in Northern Mozambique. Later, they sent one couple to Brazil and another to Portugal where they could use the Portuguese language they already knew.

It was local initiative that took hold because of an idea that was planted in the hearts of the pastors.

(for more, see Glen Schwartz, Ideas Can Be More Powerful Than Money, Mission Frontiers, November-December 2011)

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