PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 25 (CDN) — Muslim students attacked a Christian professor at the University of Peshawar this month after he refused their demand to convert to Islam, the instructor told Compass.
Psychology professor Samuel John, a father of four who has been teaching at the university in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province for 12 years, said that as he came out of his house on the university campus at 8:30 a.m. on June 14, about 20 to 25 students rushed and assaulted him.
“I shouted for help, but no one came to help,” he said.
When his wife learned what was happening, she ran to help him, but the students beat her as well. Both John and his wife were rushed to Lady Reading hospital, where they were treated for their injuries, with John listed in critical condition.
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We need prayer from a person for a person. Scripture and God’s spirit teach us to pray for all society, for the Church with which we are associated, for nations, and for special spheres of work. Most needful and blessed. But somehow more is needed—to take of those with whom we come into contact, one by one, and make them the subjects of our intercession. The larger supplications must have their place, but it is difficult to know when our prayers are answered. But nothing will bring God so near, will test and strengthen our faith, and make us know we are fellow workers with God, as when we receive an answer to our prayers for individuals. It will quicken in us the new and blessed consciousness that we indeed have power with God. Let every worker seek to exercise this grace of taking up and praying for individual souls.
Count upon an answer. He shall ask, and God will give him (the one who prays) life. The words follow on those in which John had spoken about the confidence we have of being heard, if we ask anything according to His will. There is often complaint made of not knowing God’s will. But here there is no difficulty. ‘He willeth that all men should be saved.’ If we rest our faith on this will of God, we shall grow strong and grasp the promise. ‘He should pray and God will give him life.’ The Holy Spirit will lead us, if we yield ourselves to be led by Him, to the souls God would have us take as our special care, and for which the grace of faith and persevering prayer will be given us. Let the wonderful promise: God will give him life, stir us and encourage us to our priestly ministry of personal and definite intercession, as one of the most blessed among the good works in which we can serve God and man. Praying and working are inseparable.
Let all who work learn to pray well. Let all who pray learn to work well.
—Andrew Murray
Jamaa Ait Bakrim, prisoner number 26574, is currently in Prison Centrale, located in Kenitra, Morocco. He has been there since 2005 when he was sentenced to 15 years for “proselytism” and “destruction of goods of others.” “This second charge is a common legal tactic of creating a separate infraction to lengthen the sentence and shift attention from the actual issue of religion,” said a Moroccan Christian whose name is withheld for security reasons. The charge of proselytization is derived from Article 220 of Moroccan Criminal Law which makes it illegal to “shake the faith of a Muslim.” “The charge of ‘proselytization’ is a specific concern because the wide range of applications that are used to suppress other religions,” stated the Moroccan source. This is the same official charge that has led to the deportation of many foreigners from Morocco in the past three months. In 1993 Jamaa returned to his Moroccan village after a trip to Europe where he converted to Christianity. In 1994 he spent seven months in the mental hospital of Inezgane for proselytizing. In 1996 he was condemned to one year, this time in jail, for putting up a Christian cross in public. In 2001 he was prosecuted again, leading to the current sentence he has been serving since 2005.
The sinner who is thoroughly convicted by the Spirit sees himself like a condemned prisoner held by so many irons that escape is impossible. It is not their disease but their physician that kills sinners. They think to cure themselves; and this deception leaves them incurable. If you cling to the self-confidence of repentance and reformation, they will betray you into the hands of God’s justice and wrath. But if you have turned away from this religious self-confidence, you have escaped one of the finest snares that the wit of hell can weave.
Not only is the convicted sinner so convicted that he knows he is helpless, but he welcomes the full provision laid up in Christ for him. And this attitude is necessary prior to faith. Without it the soul convicted of sin is more likely to go to the gallows with Judas, or fall on the sword of the law, than to run to Christ.
The Spirit powerfully but sweetly renovates the rebellious will so it can deliberately choose Christ as Lord and Savior. During a storm a person may run under an enemy’s shelter he would not have even glanced at in fair weather. Do you take pleasure in choosing Christ? Do you go to Him not only for safety but also for delight? As the lover said of her bridegroom, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight” (Song of Songs 2:3). This must be a deliberate choice; wherein the soul seriously weighs the covenant Christ offers and then chooses Him. Even when Naomi spoke the worst she could to discourage her daughter-in-law, Ruth enjoyed her mother’s company too much to give it up regardless of the potential hardships involved in her decision.
—William Gurnall
