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Teenager in Prison


108 –April 18 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Posted: 17 Apr 2015 05:23 PM PDT

Yudintsev, Andrei

Teenager in Prison

  “But he’s just a kid!”  Surely those words could have been said of Joseph in Egypt, or of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Babylon. But that might also have been said of Andrei Yudintsev, who was eighteen when he and his friend, Vladimir Timchuk, were arrested during the Thanksgiving service at their Baptist church.  The lads thought they might spend a short time in the local jail or be fined, but soon they discovered they were going to be “tried” and the mandatory “guilty” finding would confine them for years in prison. They were given prison terms of three and a half years.  Following a brief incarceration in the local prison, the two were transported to different prison camps.  On April 18, 1982, Andrei arrived in his camp where he worked as a welder.  For two years, he had no Christian fellowship, but one day he was told that a fellow believer had been brought in.  He rejoiced to meet Pavel Zinchenko and to discover that they had many mutual friends.  The men continually encouraged each other which made the burdens of prison almost tolerable.  In the course of time, a third believer, Vladimir Blasenko from Nikolaev, was also transferred into their camp. Vladimir had suffered severely for his faith, but his captors could not break his spirit. Valdimir was thrilled to discover that Andrei and Pavel had a New Testament, and he read late into the nights.  Andrei reported:  “At first it might seem that this was a waste of my youth, but when it was over, nothing remained except gratitude to the Lord and gladness.  David says in Psalm 33, ‘For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy Name.’”  “He’s just a kid?”  Of Andrei we can say, he became a man, and a special kind of man, a man of God!

Dr. Dale R. Hart adapted from: “This Day in Baptist History III” David L. Cummins. pp. 225 – 226

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Freedom of Religion and the Indiana Law


Freedom of Religion and the Indiana Law: On the verge of Government Run Faith

by Bro. Jeff Haney

“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.”  Acts 5:29

Biblically speaking, there are two times, and only two times when it is necessary for the children of God to disregard, disobey, and defy the laws of the land and simply refuse to obey their government:  1.) When the government by law forbids someone from obeying God – Daniel’s praying against the law that forbade it; 2.) When the government by forces someone to disobey God – Hananiah, Azariah, and Meshael, (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) being forced to bow to a false god.  Only when circumstance fit within the framework of those scriptural principles can a child of God rightly and flatly refuse to obey the laws of the government ruling over them.

I have never seen a time in our nation when either one of those scenarios were the case.  To my limited knowledge there has never been a time, when I, anyone I know, or anyone I have heard of, was forced into disobeying the God of the Bible.  Conversely, to my limited knowledge there has never been a time when I, anyone I know, or anyone I have heard of was forbidden from obeying God.  Within the scope of my vision frontwards, backwards and all around I have never seen either of those cases play out in our society . . . until now.

Though not here yet, we are standing on the cliff of Government Run Faith.  Of course we have seen government run health-care on the front porch of the evening news for a while now.  Government regulations grip every industry from education and finance to bean sprouts, pot holes, and outhouses.  If what is happening over the law being passed in Indiana is any indication of the direction and mood of those wanting the government to regulate body fat, and hairstyles, the next big thing is government approved belief.

The central issue in those shouting the accusations of discrimination is the fact that they cannot and will not stand for someone believing a particular behavior is wrong.  As one commentator said, “No one would dare expect a black baker to prepare cupcakes for a KKK rally.”  Why then on earth would someone expect a Bible believing Christian to endorse a gay marriage?

Regardless of how loud it gets said, how long they say it, or how many people chime in, in agreement, the scenario they present of a Christian florist refusing flowers for a gay couple is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be discrimination.  It is discernment, conviction, and belief based on the Word of God not to aid and abet a sin that has always been, and always will be a sin.  It is not bigotry, it is not hatred, it is not intolerance.  We do not provide alcohol to alcoholics, we do not carry people with gambling problems to casinos, we do not drive get away cars for bank-robbers.

Acting upon homosexual attraction is not acceptable to the God of creation. It is not okay, it is not to be embraced, applauded, aided or abetted.  From what God has said to man, it is morally illegal, it is spiritually illegal, it is eternally illegal, it is outright bona fide, sin.  Period.  That is the end of the subject for Christians, and it will never, ever, ever, change.  As I have said before, if God said something different, then every Bible believing Christian in the world would say something different.  We do not take our cues from “how we are born” we take our cues from “What God has said.”

If those who’s tolerance is a one-way street would speak in plain honest language, what they would says is, “You are not allowed to believe what you believe, and you are not allowed to behave according to that belief.  You cannot believe the Bible, you cannot obey the Bible, and you cannot proclaim what you say the Bible says.”  Of course that’s my words in their mouths, but that is what I’m hearing from those who have more heat than light.

According to the direction of the mood of this country, the heart of their heat, and their hate is aimed at regulating what Americans are allowed to believe. It is not socially acceptable to “believe gay marriage is wrong.”  If that course of thinking continues to be fertilized and fed, it will not be long before it is not legally acceptable to continue to “behave” with the conviction that gay marriage is wrong.  Changes are definitely coming, and they are the kind that are not worth making

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