An evangelical pastor in  Iran who faces execution for refusing to denounce his faith said recently he has no regrets and urged Christians to be strong amid a government clampdown.

Youcef Nadarkhani, 33, said in a recent missive that he has no regrets, and that Christians should remain faithful to Jesus Christ even in the midst of persecution.

Nadarkhani wrote in his latest missive that a church must be based “on the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ … for beyond the protection of the Word of God the destroyer destroys,” Worthy News reported. “Let believers, who are heirs of the glory, be examples for others in order to be a witness of the power of Christ for the world and the future.”

Nadarkhani was told by Iran’s Supreme Court last month that he could face execution if he refuses to return to Islam. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2011/07/u-s-state-department-slams-iran-for-forcing-christian-pastor-to-choose-between-faith-and-death-16485/).

In a separate development, the families of two Christian converts in Iran, who were arrested on July 15 and beaten up for their faiths, still have no information of their exact whereabouts and state of health.

The families of Vahid Rofegar and Reza Kahnamoei, Azeri-speaking Christians who live in Tabriz city, have been trying to establish contact with the men.

Most recently, they heard that Rofegar and Kahnamoei were transferred to a prison in Abhar city and are being kept in separate cells. However, they know little else.

Arrested and beaten

Rofegar and Kahnamoei were riding a motorbike in Kalibar City, in Eastern Azerbaijan province last month when policemen spotted them. When the Christians realized they were being followed they sped up, but lost control of their motorcycle and catapulted to the ground.

An eyewitness told Mohabat News, “The police arrested and beat them and finally transferred them into a jail (in Kalibar). Even though Reza’s leg was badly hurt, the officers didn’t care about his injuries and didn’t provide any medical assistance.”

Initially, the families of the two men had no information of their whereabouts or the state of their health. It was only when they sought help from organizations that police informed them that the two men would be set free by July 31.

Despite this, the two men have not returned home. It has been learned that Rofegar and Kahnamoei were transferred to a prison in Abhar city, and are being kept in separate cells.

Stepped up pressure

Rofegar and Kahnamoei’s arrests comprise part of an overall effort to step up pressure on Christians in Iran, especially those who speak Azeri. Pro-government websites have stated this, and complain of the “wide spread of Christianity, especially in the city of Tabriz,” Mohabat News reported.

The stepped up pressure has been blamed on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration, which views Christianity as a growing threat. In 1979 less than 500 converts to Christianity from Islam were known in Iran. To date, numbers of Christian converts from Islam range at over 100,000.

Question: “Can a Christian lose salvation?”

Answer: Before this question is answered, the term “Christian” must be defined. A “Christian” is not a person who has said a prayer, or walked down an aisle, or been raised in a Christian family. While each of these things can be a part of the Christian experience, they are not what “makes” a Christian. A Christian is a person who has, by faith, received and fully trusted in Jesus Christ as the only Savior (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8-9).

So, with this definition in mind, can a Christian lose salvation? Perhaps the best way to answer this crucially important question is to examine what the Bible says occurs at salvation, and to study what losing salvation would therefore entail. Here are a few examples:

A Christian is a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This verse speaks of a person becoming an entirely new creature as a result of being “in Christ.” For a Christian to lose salvation, the new creation would have to be canceled and reversed.

A Christian is redeemed. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19). The word “redeemed” refers to a purchase being made, a price being paid. For a Christian to lose salvation, God Himself would have to revoke His purchase that He paid for with the precious blood of Christ.

A Christian is justified. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). To “justify” means to “declare righteous.” All those who receive Jesus as Savior are “declared righteous” by God. For a Christian to lose salvation, God would have to go back on His Word and “un-declare” what He had previously declared.

A Christian is promised eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Eternal life is a promise of eternity (forever) in heaven with God. God promises, “Believe and you will have eternal life.” For a Christian to lose salvation, eternal life would have to be taken away. If a Christian is promised to live forever, how then can God break this promise by taking away eternal life?

A Christian is guaranteed glorification. “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). As we learned in Romans 5:1, justification is declared at the moment of faith. According to Romans 8:30, glorification is guaranteed for all those whom God justifies. Glorification refers to a Christian receiving a perfect resurrection body in heaven. If a Christian can lose salvation, then Romans 8:30 is in error, because God could not guarantee glorification for all those whom He predestines, calls, and justifies.

Many more illustrations of what occurs at salvation could be shared. Even these few make it abundantly clear that a Christian cannot lose salvation. Most, if not all, of what the Bible says happens to us when we receive Jesus Christ as Savior would be invalidated if salvation could be lost. Salvation cannot be reversed. A Christian cannot be un-newly created. Redemption cannot be undone. Eternal life cannot be lost and still be considered eternal. If a Christian can lose salvation, God would have to go back on His Word and change His mind—two things that Scripture tells us God never does.

The most frequent objections to the belief that a Christian cannot lose salvation are 1) What about those who are Christians and continually live an immoral lifestyle? 2) What about those who are Christians but later reject the faith and deny Christ? The problem with these two objections is the phrase “who are Christians.” The Bible declares that a true Christian will not live a continually immoral lifestyle (1 John 3:6). The Bible declares that anyone who departs the faith is demonstrating that he never truly was a Christian (1 John 2:19). Therefore, neither objection is valid. Christians do not continually live immoral lifestyles, nor do they reject the faith and deny Christ. Such actions are proof that they were never redeemed.

No, a Christian cannot lose salvation. Nothing can separate a Christian from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39). Nothing can remove a Christian from God’s hand (John 10:28-29). God is both willing and able to guarantee and maintain the salvation He has given us. Jude 24-25, “To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”

Recommended Resource: Eternal Security by Charles Stanley.

In Luke Chapter 23 and at verse 24, Pilate caved in, and gave the people what they wanted. He is so weak. He is so spineless. He has no moral backbone, and just goes along with the critics of Christ Jesus and with the crowd.

In reality, it was not Jesus who was on trial. It was them! Jesus is going to the Father, admittedly by a very painful route, but it was essential. The sacrificial lamb has to be slain.

Pilate’s pathetic actions, and Herod’s rage, and the evil plans of the religious leaders, cannot stop Jesus Christ from fulfilling the will of the Father and doing His Saving Work.

You cannot stop Jesus. You cannot stop God.

Having read of the trial of Jesus Christ, in Luke 22,23, we read on at verse 26, which describes the crucifixion, and it is the cross which lies right at the very heart and core of our faith.

That political weakling, Pilate, gives way to the demands of the people, and anxious Herod must have this rival king killed, and the Jewish leaders want this troublesome Jesus out of the way, and then, things can return to normal.

But, that can never be, after a man has met Jesus Christ. After you have been confronted by the Lord Jesus Christ, a man can never be the same again, no matter how that man might react, by receiving or rejecting.

There are consequences, good and bad, wonderful and tragic. We have a man like Peter, or a man like Judas.

When you meet Jesus, it can never be as though you had never met Him.

The physically exhausted Jesus is led away to be crucified, along the narrow compacted streets of Jerusalem, and across the busy thoroughfare to the hill.

It has been a long 24 hours, very long, for Jesus.

He has been teaching, breaking bread and sharing that cup at the Passover Meal, praying and wrestling and struggling and battling in the Garden amidst the olive trees. Jesus has been betrayed, arrested, denied by one of his key disciples, put on trial, taken here and there, mocked, ridiculed, scourged and now they compel someone to carry his cross.

This is not very pretty. How did people ever come to present it as being respectable and dignified, like His birth? Why does man want to dress things up, and have them appear nice? Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and now the real purpose of it all is about to be evidenced to the whole world who wishes to know and understand.

There are three most helpful words we use when leading people around these significant places in Jerusalem. They are Gethsemane, the Gabbatha (or Pavement) and Golgotha.

In Gethsemane, Jesus Christ prayed. At the Gabbatha, Jesus was on trial before Pilate, and today you can visit and walk on the very same excavated pavement slabs in the Via Dolorosa on the north side of the city of Jerusalem. And, on Golgotha Jesus Christ was crucified and shed his blood to wash away all our sin.

Those of you who preach and teach, take these three words beginning with the same letter and your people will remember what is so central and vital. Present your people with facts about Jesus Christ. Allow them to be confronted by the gracious loving rescuing and saving Christ. When we do our work, the Holy Spirit does His!

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.

What makes everyone think artist Leonardo Da Vinci uncovered some big Christian secret?

Writers and religious skeptics have always come up with alternative narratives about Jesus’ life and ministry. But author Dan Brown brought it to center stage in a spectacular way, with his blockbuster 2003 fiction, The Da Vinci Code, followed by the movie and all its sequels and franchises.

Brown provoked speculation in both secular and theological circles—all the way to the Vatican:

Did Leonardo Da Vinci write an encrypted code on his famous Vitruvian Man? Was Mary Magdalene married to Jesus? Is there really a Holy Grail?

Seven years later, even Christian magazines are still asking questions like, “Why weren’t there women in Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting?” (Light & Life Magazine, March, April 2010, pp. 10-11).

I’d like some answers from you, Mr. Da Vinci…may I call you Leo?

How is it that you lived from 1452 to 1519—over 14 centuries after Jesus—yet you have all the secrets of his ministry that not even his contemporaries revealed, or the prophets were inspired by God to write?

Surely, a Renaissance man like yourself, jack of many trades, was able to construct a Time Machine. Is that how you went back and did the portrait of Jesus at the Last Supper, and hid at least one woman in the background, as some say?

What about those who claim you purposefully left women out of the picture?

Grid reproduction of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"

Let’s spend some time on this unfounded “women missing from The Last Supper” claim. Before we ask why Da Vinci left them out of his painting, we could ask why they were left out of the Last Supper accounts, when we see women mentioned in many other New Testament scriptures.

All four disciples who wrote the gospels found it important enough to mention that women were the first to see Jesus’ empty tomb (Matthew 28:8-10; Mark 16:9-10; Luke 24:8-11; John 20:10-18). John speaks of the Samaritan woman at the well to whom Jesus offers “living water” (John 4:7-42), and the woman whom Jesus saved from punishment for adultery (John 8:3-11).

Matthew 14:21 specifically mentions women as being present, yet outside of the 5,000-man count at the five loaves and fish miracle. Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, are mentioned in Luke 10:38-41 and John 11:1-40.

Throughout the book of Acts and his later writings, the apostle Paul mentions by name many women who participated in spreading the gospel. In 2 Timothy 1:5, he gives credit to Timothy’s mother and grandmother for how they raised the young disciple.

So why, then, would women be left out of the Last Supper accounts? And why would Da Vinci leave them out of his painting?

Simple answers to these questions:
A Boston Museum of Science website devoted to Da Vinci’s works quotes the artist:
The most praiseworthy form of painting is the one that most resembles what it imitates.

I doubt Da Vinci, having said this, would have put brush to canvas for The Last Supper without first reading the Biblical accounts of its occurrence. Therefore, he imitated what he saw in scripture.

He didn’t read anything between the lines like people love to do with the Bible today in order to discredit the Book itself and its sources. He didn’t add women for one simple reason…they weren’t there.

And, I’m sure Da Vinci would say Jesus wasn’t married either.

But the most important answer comes from a Christian’s own faith: What’s in the Bible was divinely inspired by God through the hands of man, and God knew what books would be canonized.

The New Testament’s writers had a hunch their stories would seem unbelievable and questionable. That’s why Luke 1:1-2 states:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been  fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.

And 2 Peter 1:16 says:
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Why should Christians stick with what the Bible says?

As Christians, we must learn to trust the Lord with all our heart rather than leaning on our own human understanding (Proverbs 3:5). Our faith grows through hearing and reading the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

In other words, the greatest faith in knowing that Jesus was who He said He was, and that things went down exactly as they appear in the Bible, comes from believing the book itself…not through the speculations of man.

The people who write these modern-day things can’t prove what they’re saying; neither have they yet proven the Bible is false.

Scriptures quoted in italics within this commentary are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.