BAPTIST DISTINCTIVES

You always hear the Baptists refer to their church as the "Lord's House"! That has always struck a nerve. Thanks for sharing this.

Luke 18:7-8 "And shall not God auenge his owne elect, which crie day and night vnto him, thogh he beare long with them? 8 I tell you that he wil auenge them speedily. Neuerthelesse, when the Son of man commeth, shall hee find faith on the earth?" During the Roman persecutions, the true church grew like wildfire. It could not be stopped. The Inquisition and Roman suppression of true believers could not stop the Reformation . . again the people were on fire for the true word of God. But now? I wonder if Rome has determined that open persecution of the true believers will only add more to their ranks. Rome's tactics have changed and are much more effective than prior persecutions. You could argue that the spiritual persecution of True Believers is worse now than ever. Society has been saturated with entertainments and other distractions that block out the desire for God's word. There is no true biblical education at all . . even in the churches, nor does there seem to be much demand for it. Anyone who is on fire for the Lord is immediately marginalized and branded a religious extremist. These few can legally be fired for expressing their beliefs at work . . and increasingly . . they can be prosecuted criminally and removed from society with no outcry. Increasingly, the voice of the true believer is being eliminated from the public discourse. Thrown out of churches. Eliminated from social media. Eliminated from financial dealings. Very dark days now indeed.

A time will come when persecution will equal and exceed that of Caesarian and Papal Rome (Revelation 20:4). True believers will be betrayed by family, friends and the institutional church system and leaders (Matthew 24:12).

Thank you Reg . . another great writing. Could find no fault in anything you wrote, and I am always comforted when I see your references are also the author/books to which I would refer others. My church-going background occurred mainly in my youth, mostly Presbyterian churches, but also attended other services/denominations. By comparison to those, I would give the Baptists a high grade for even HAVING precepts. It appears the others have long since marginalized theirs. But if you have precepts and don't follow them, you are a hypocrite which is just as bad, if not worse, than not having them at all. You make a very good point about persecution. As recent confirmation of this point, I worked with several individuals during the recent Scamdemic who were seeking a religious exemption (not all Bible-believing Christians, even some Roman Catholics) from taking the jab. In several cases, they were asked to identify their religious denomination. If the leaders of their denomination were not claiming a right to refuse the jab . . the exemption was denied. Employers were not honoring an individuals' own privately held spiritual belief. Although not specifically persecution of the Elect, this was a not so subtle persecution of the kind to which you refer. Maybe even a trial run to see what they can get away with next time.

Thanks Reginald...Interesting work.

Thanks Reg, was just working on the question of the week about Easter and did a refresher on the Easter video you did on this topic a while back and saw you reference this book at the end of the video and wanted to read it 👍