120918 More Illegal Home Fellowships
Last month, I confused two incidents into one, so this is the third home fellowship in two months that has been declared illegal, with people arrested. This matters to me because I have been attending home fellowships for 31 years. None of these people have been anyone I know, nor are any of them associated with the ministry with which I choose to stand. Each case, however, seems closer and closer to the type of meeting I enjoy.
One would think that a small home fellowship would be far less threatening than a large imposing church building. One building with five hundred members, however, can be more easily targeted and shut down than fifty houses of ten people each. As Agent would say, "Paranoid much?" You betcha! I read history. This situation could turn on a dime and everyone would laugh at my reasonings, or it could escalate into a pogrom. There is nothing 'magic' about so-called 'civilization'. Ideologies change names, but the basic forms and implementations of governments are the same. Even our unique experiment called 'The United States of America' had it roots in the Five Books of Law, the new law of Christ, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Rome fell. People vilify Rome, but it had a well defined system of laws and poor people had their basic needs met better in Rome than elsewhere. (Bread and Circuses were free.) Ancient Greece has been touted as a wonderful society, but it fell. Egypt was once the wealthiest nation in the world. It fell. What makes Americans think that history is over? If the Lord tarries, then two thousand years from now, archaeologists and historians will be talking about OUR wonderful roads and OUR wonderful monuments! They will argue when it was that we reached OUR point of inevitable decline.
I sound terribly pessimistic. I woke suddenly feeling a vague sense of unease. My knees hurt, and I discovered that the mice had eaten my soap. (Why soap and not food???) None of that matters - not really. What matters is the Word of God. Israel had the Word, and protected the Word with keys and formulas. Christians had to scrape and fight to get the New Testament, and it took sixteen centuries to put it all together. Some say that means it can't be the True Word. No, it fits and it works. God was just waiting for someone to believe it all. Is there anything too hard for God?
I am sad for those home fellowships that made the news. I see it as a sign of curtailed freedom and cultural hostility, but also of an interruption in believing for God's protection.
Acts 8:3 "As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison."
Eventually, Saul was converted and helped to build a stronger church. Politics don't matter, because they constantly change. Politics do matter, because they affect our freedom. Therefore, do as it says in 1 Timothy 2:1,2:
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
One would think that a small home fellowship would be far less threatening than a large imposing church building. One building with five hundred members, however, can be more easily targeted and shut down than fifty houses of ten people each. As Agent would say, "Paranoid much?" You betcha! I read history. This situation could turn on a dime and everyone would laugh at my reasonings, or it could escalate into a pogrom. There is nothing 'magic' about so-called 'civilization'. Ideologies change names, but the basic forms and implementations of governments are the same. Even our unique experiment called 'The United States of America' had it roots in the Five Books of Law, the new law of Christ, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Rome fell. People vilify Rome, but it had a well defined system of laws and poor people had their basic needs met better in Rome than elsewhere. (Bread and Circuses were free.) Ancient Greece has been touted as a wonderful society, but it fell. Egypt was once the wealthiest nation in the world. It fell. What makes Americans think that history is over? If the Lord tarries, then two thousand years from now, archaeologists and historians will be talking about OUR wonderful roads and OUR wonderful monuments! They will argue when it was that we reached OUR point of inevitable decline.
I sound terribly pessimistic. I woke suddenly feeling a vague sense of unease. My knees hurt, and I discovered that the mice had eaten my soap. (Why soap and not food???) None of that matters - not really. What matters is the Word of God. Israel had the Word, and protected the Word with keys and formulas. Christians had to scrape and fight to get the New Testament, and it took sixteen centuries to put it all together. Some say that means it can't be the True Word. No, it fits and it works. God was just waiting for someone to believe it all. Is there anything too hard for God?
I am sad for those home fellowships that made the news. I see it as a sign of curtailed freedom and cultural hostility, but also of an interruption in believing for God's protection.
Acts 8:3 "As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison."
Eventually, Saul was converted and helped to build a stronger church. Politics don't matter, because they constantly change. Politics do matter, because they affect our freedom. Therefore, do as it says in 1 Timothy 2:1,2:
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.