Broken and Rebuilt by God

The following is an excerpt from Andrew Brunson’s Feast Sermon.This is a special day for me personally, because on October 12, 2018 – four years ago – I was standing before judges in a Turkish courtroom. They had just convicted me as a terrorist, and I was waiting for them to sentence me. And I didn’t know if I would see my wife or family again…

I had read biographies of my spiritual heroes and what they suffered for the Lord, and they apparently had wonderful victories during their time in prison, or different kinds of suffering they had. And in my personal walk with God, I had been pursuing His presence for years. So, I had an expectation that if I go to prison, it will be difficult. It will be lonely. I will have grief at times. But I’ll also have a sense of joy. And I’ll have a sense of strength. And I’ll have a sense of grace. And certainly, I will have a sense of God’s presence. After all, I had run after His presence for years…

So, what really surprised me when I landed in prison is that I began very quickly to break in so many ways. I’d been a relatively tough missionary. We’d been planting churches for years in a Muslim country… We had bomb threats, we had death threats. I had been attacked by gunmen once, and we had counted the cost. So, I was surprised when I broke so quickly. I was in solitary confinement, Then I was put into a prison cell built for eight people. There were 22-23 of us in that crowded cell. All my cellmates were Muslims. I didn’t have any other believer with me during my time in prison, and the only Christian contact with was my wife.

From Partition to Statehood

By: David Parson, ICEJ Vice President & Senior SpokesmanThe unheralded Christians who aided Israel’s rebirth 60 years ago

This coming year, Israel will celebrate the 75th Anniversary of its rebirth as a nation on 14 May 1948. This momentous event was made possible by the passage of the United Nation’s Partition Plan for Palestine six months earlier, on November 29, 1947, which gave international legitimacy to the founding of a Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel.

Next Tuesday will mark 75 years since the UN approval of that Partition Plan by a margin of 33 votes to 13, with 10 abstentions. This should be a day of celebration as well for Israel and her friends worldwide. But the Palestinians have turned it into day of global protests against Zionism and a day for passing numerous anti-Israel resolutions at the UN headquarters in New York.

On 29 November next week, we can expect 15 or so annual anti-Israel resolutions to pass once more in the UN General Assembly. These are all unfair and unwarranted, but two resolutions in particular are of great concern due to the year-round harm they do to Israel. These two resolutions reauthorize and fund two institutions within the UN Secretariat itself which constantly work to delegitimize Israel and to produce propaganda hostile to the Jewish state. I am referring to the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat (DPR), and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). And there are many nations worldwide with significant Evangelical communities who should be working to change the votes of their nation’s diplomatic mission at the UN to rather defeat these odious resolutions.