Volume 3 - 1989
LEGAL “It is now permitted to send parcels containing religious matter, and also Bibles, etc.” — From “Customs Controls — New Rules”, Moscow, 25 March 1988. Bibles posted to the USSR are arriving. Continue sending them while you can! HARMFUL LITERATURE Christians in the USSR who have distributed literature and tracts have seen uniformed police and KGB officials approaching the people and removing the Gospel literature from them.
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Europe must be one of the most spiritually needy continents on earth. The secularization and paganisation of large sections of Europe is tragic. Yet there are surprisingly dynamic pockets of spiritual vitality and life amidst the general atheism and hedonism.
Denmark Lenora and I have returned from almost three weeks of ministry in Europe. We were invited to speak at theReformation Resurrection Conference in Denmark. Australian missionary Cameron Buettel is involved in church planting in Denmark and he heard of our work through Way of the Master radio. Reformation Conference Participants for the Reformation Conference came from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany and even from Finland. The families from Finland included a missionary from Northern Ireland who drove his family and members of his congregation across Finland, Sweden and Denmark to take part in this conference. One German family now lived in Denmark to be able to continue home schooling their children. Home schooling is being outlawed in Germany. Europe is in danger of falling to Islam. The catastrophic decline of Christianity in Europe and the sharp decline in the birth rate, along with massive Islamic immigration, has made Europe vulnerable to an Islamic takeover.
Secular Humanism and Hedonism have gutted Europe, morally, spiritually and ethically. Most Europeans have replaced the pleasure of worship with the worship of pleasure. Materialism and Occultism have, in too many areas, filled the spiritual vacuum. Abortion, pornography and perversion have devastated the morals of Europe. History is repeating itself. Europe today is facing a similar Renaissance of paganism and aggressive Islamic expansionism, which threatened faith and freedom back in the 15th and 16th Centuries. There is an urgent need for a new Reformation. Secular Humanism and Hedonism are no match for Islamic Jihad. Only a vibrant Biblical Christianity can enable Europe to resist, and defeat, radical Islam. Volume 1 - 1990
Over 50 000 people filled the town square of Timisoara, chanting “Down with Ceausescu,” “Down with Communism,” Down with criminals” and “We will not be silent any longer.” Army units ordered to disperse the demonstrators refused to fire upon the unarmed protesters. Three army officers were summarily executed by the hated Securitate (secret police) for refusing to open fire. Still the army would not shoot. More soldiers were summarily shot by the Securitate. Then the communist party mobilised the Securitate’s “Special Assignment Brigade.” My recent mission to Europe was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. I traveled across a continent in decline and crisis, yet I had the privilege of ministering in some of the brightest outposts of vibrant spiritual life and dynamic faith. Secular Humanism with its materialism and unbelief was pervasive, and, in many surprising places, Islam was on the ascendancy.
While Europe has a dynamic and rich Christian heritage, most of its inhabitants today barely seem to give it a thought. Most Europeans seem to have forgotten or rejected their Christian heritage. Yet, I witnessed strongholds of Protestant Christianity and dynamic evangelistic churches as far afield as Northern Ireland and Romania. Volume 5 -1989
On May 2, 1989, some 1200 young people gathered from many towns in Ukraine in the forest outside Kiev for a youth fellowship. More than 100 made public commitments to Christ as the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of teenagers. At the end of the day as they headed home, the Christians decided to witness in the square across from the main train station in Kiev. The impromptu service opened with Christian songs. Next some young men preached mini-sermons. Commuters stopped and listened attentively. People scrambled to get the gospels the Christians were trying to distribute. A forest of hands stretched out to get hold of them. Volume 1 - 1990
The dismissal and arrest of a Reformed pastor led to widespread demonstrations and a whirlwind uprising that swept a communist dictatorship into the dustbin of history. Rev. Laszlo Tokes, a 37-year-old Hungarian Reformed pastor in the Transylvanian city of Timisoara was courageous in exposing the communist persecution at a time when such courage was rare in Romania. Volume 5 - 1989
There have been a series of remarkable incidents recorded of God judging the persecutors of the Church in Eastern Europe: A communist official ordered a certain pastor to be arrested. The next day the official died of a heart attack. Another communist party official ordered that all the Bibles in his district were to be collected and pulped, to be turned into toilet paper. This blasphemous project was in fact carried out. But the next day when the official was medically examined, he was informed that he had terminal cancer. He died shortly afterwards. |
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