Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

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Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

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Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

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Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

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Land owner falsely charges young man with illicit sex, calls villagers to beat, burn him.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (CDN) — A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.

Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.

Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.

Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan.

On Oct. 3 Ghuman and 11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to Ghuman’s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and Yousaf Gill, both of nearby village No. 118 Chour Muslim. Gill is a former councilor of Union Council No. 30, and Yaqub Masih is an ordained pastor waiting for his denomination to assign him a church.

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A Southern Baptist church leader said recently that Christians should not practice yoga, should not do the stretching exercises of yoga, and should not replace the spiritual aspect of yoga with Christian thought and scripture.

Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Seminary president, warned Christians in a recent piece he wrote in the Christian Post that the meditation and stretching components of yoga are one and the same.

In his essay Mohler wrote, “Most seem unaware that yoga cannot be neatly separated into physical and spiritual dimensions. The physical is the spiritual in yoga, and the exercises and disciplines of yoga are meant to connect with the divine.”

Mohler cited Douglas R. Groothuis, a professor at Denver Seminary and a New Age specialist who said, “All forms of yoga involve occult assumptions, even hatha yoga, which is often presented as a merely physical discipline.”

Mohler said the physical postures of yoga are “teaching postures with a spiritual purpose.”  He wrote in the Christian Post, “If you have to meditate intensely in order to achieve or to maintain a physical posture, it is no longer merely a physical posture.”

Noting that yoga in India is a product of syncretism, Mohler stated in his Christian Post article that in the U.S. that same syncretism has evolved. He called it a symptom of “postmodern spiritual confusion” that has infiltrated the church.

According to Mohler, Christians who practice yoga are either in denial about its roots, or do not know that it contradicts Christianity. Noting that his Christian Post article got hefty feedback, Mohler told the AP, “I’m really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians.”

Other Christians who agree with Mohler are Pat Robertson who objected to the chants and spiritual components, and Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church called it a “false religion.” Muslim clerics from Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt have banned yoga, the AP said.

Not in agreement

Writer Agnieszka Tennant said in an essay in Christianity Today that while she is perfectly aware of yoga’s Hindu roots and knows that hard-core yogis see it as a religious ritual, “Hindu gods don’t make it onto my mat.”

Tennant wrote in Christianity Today that God “created the common graces of oxygen, stretching, flexibility, breathing and soothing music.” When she does the deep breathing, she dwells on how God is “omnipresent and as necessary as the air.”

Comparing yoga to meat offered to idols, she said Paul wrote in Corinthians that eating meat offered to idols is okay, but Paul also said that others are “so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.”

Laurette Willis, a former yoga instructor, said the breathing techniques can open the door to psychic experiences, something Mohler also believes. Willis said yoga led her to the New Age, then depression and alcoholism, Kyria reported.

Now a Christian, Willis runs PraiseMoves, which Mohler would likely object to, as it blends the health benefits of yoga with a Christian viewpoint and substitutes biblical names for the poses, according to Kyria.

Stephanie Dillon, owner of PM Yoga, injects her Christian faith and mentions Jesus in her sessions. She said that yoga actually renewed her faith and brought her back to church. She felt Mohler’s viewpoint is legalistic, while her faith is primarily based on a personal relationship with Jesus, the AP said.

A 2008 study in the Yoga Journal said that seven percent of adults in the U.S. practice yoga. That is a larger percentage than the number of Southern Baptists in the U.S., which a 2007 Pew Research Center survey said was 6.7 percent, the AP reported.

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Question: “Would the discovery of Noah’s Ark be important?”

Answer:
There have been numerous claimed discoveries of Noah’s Ark in recent years. The discoveries have been in various locations, ranging from Mount Ararat in Turkey, to a mountain range in Iran, to an entirely different location on Mount Ararat (with a visitors’ center).

It is not the purpose of this article to evaluate whether or not the Noah’s Ark discovery claims are legitimate. Rather, the question at hand is: If Noah’s Ark was discovered, would that be significant? Would the discovery of Noah’s Ark cause people to turn to God in faith?

The discovery of a boat-like structure in the mountains of the Middle East, carbon dated to approximately the time of the biblical account of Noah’s Ark (2500 B.C), with evidence of animal life once having been aboard would surely be a tremendous discovery.

For those who believe in God and trust in the Bible as His inspired Word, it would be powerful confirmation that the Bible is true and that early human history occurred precisely as the Bible describes it.

A verified discovery of Noah’s Ark would likely cause many seekers and open-minded skeptics to at least re-evaluate their beliefs. For the close-minded critic and hardened atheist, however, the discovery of Noah’s Ark would not make one bit of a difference.

Romans 1:19-20 declares, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (ESV).

If a person is rejecting the clear evidence of God in the universe, no biblically-related discovery would change his/her mind. Similarly, in Luke 16:31, Jesus declared, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” No discovery, no argument, and no miracle will change the mind of a person who has been blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4) and is, with a hard heart and closed mind, rejecting the light of the Gospel.

Conversely, would it matter if Noah’s Ark is never discovered? No, it would not matter because the Christian faith is not built on every biblical account being explicitly/conclusively proven. The Christian faith is built on faith. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). With that in mind, though, there are two primary explanations for why Noah’s Ark might never be discovered. First, the wood of the Ark would have been very valuable post-Flood. Noah and his family would have needed wood to build their homes.

It is possible that Noah and his family, or their descendants, deconstructed the Ark and used its wood for other purposes. Second, even if Noah and his family left the Ark intact, approximately 4500 years have passed (if the biblical account is interpreted strictly literally). A wooden structure exposed to harsh elements for 4500 years would, for the most part, decompose/decay into virtual nothingness.

While the discovery of Noah’s Ark would be a tremendous and powerful archaeological find, it will never be something Christians should place their faith in.

The discovery of Noah’s Ark, or the Ark of the Covenant, or the Garden of Eden, or any other biblical artifact will not prove the Christian faith and will not change the mind of anyone whom God is not drawing (John 6:44). “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Recommended Resource:
Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions by Elmer Towns.

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Serving Jesus Christ Is Full Of Painful Excitements

In Luke Chapter 22, we read of that scenario in verses 31,32, where Jesus is informing Peter that he is about to be sifted, but Jesus also reassures this man who is to lead the early church that he is being prayed for. We need to know this too in these challenging and peculiar days when so much of what we have been used to is being undermined and shaken just as the Scriptures depict.

There are times when we are sifted like flour, and put through the mill and pummelled as the dough is prepared. And after all that it is the fire to bake the bread! Read how the showbread was prepared for the table in the Tabernacle. There are profound lessons there for us, and particularly as we remember the thousands across the world who are being sorely and severely persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ in these present times.

Make sure you have access to the information provided regarding those who are having a hard time. “Release International” or “Open Doors” with Brother Andrew, or “Christian Solidarity Worldwide” or the “Barnabas Fund” are all excellent sources and resources. If you have come all this way with me through Acts and Luke then make sure you are praying for those who are suffering in a way that few of in the West experience.

But returning to our passage in Luke Chapter 22 – almost before the words of Jesus have come out of His mouth, Peter is saying, “You can count on me. I'll be with You. Some of the others in the room may not stick with You Jesus, but I'll be there.”

All this has to go. All this has to be dealt with, and dealing with this pride and arrogance and cockiness can be sore. That very night – within an hour or so – Peter went and wept bitterly, when he realised that he had denied Jesus three times.

It did lead to his conversion – to his coming back – to his becoming a new man – a man who could strengthen others. It was Peter who ran to the tomb three days later when he heard that something had happened to the body of Jesus.

From the text it looks as though they were all going to go through it to some degree, and don't we all. This has been our experience. There come times of testing and sifting, when Jesus allows things to happen to shake out the lumps, and knock off the rough edges, in order to refine us. How much more has he still to do?

Remember, it is to this man Peter, at the end of John's Gospel, that Jesus says three times, “Feed My sheep, and feed My lambs.”

Very often those who are able to minister and strengthen their brethren, and truly edify and build up the Church, are those who have experienced falling and failing.

Those who know what it is to have been through the mill and who have gone through a time of sifting and pummelling, know what it is all about, and once Jesus has dealt with them, He has lifted them up, and restored them, and given them a ministry, which otherwise would have been impossible.

Is this not one of the painful excitements of serving in the front line of the Kingdom of God?

I write this article during the week when I recall that it is now forty one years ago since the risen living and ascended Lord Jesus Christ baptised me in the Holy Spirit when I was on the point of resigning and returning to Motor Insurance. I thought I had got this ‘Call Thing’ all wrong, and then the caring concerned living Christ, who had called me when I was eight years old, met me in a room in Cowdenbeath, Scotland.

What a joy and amazing privilege it has been to know the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for over forty one years.

Originally here:
Word from Scotland

Author bio:
Alexander “Sandy” Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness – on the Moray Firth Coast – not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40 a.m., New Orleans time, at wsho.com.

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