The Coach always nails it:
IS THE GOSPEL ILLEGAL IN AMERICA?
By Coach Dave Daubenmire
September 8, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
I know that most of you will find this hard to believe but it is no longer unusual for Christians to be arrested for sharing the Gospel on the streets.
Most of you find it hard to believe because you never do it.
It is like going through the sexual assault/screening at the airport. Most folks don’t worry about it because they rarely fly. Only those who have experienced the indignity of being strip-searched or x-rayed for “security” reasons understand the humiliation.
Most things don’t matter until they happen to you.
That is what is going on in America. Every once in a while you might see a report of some police-misconduct, but, for the most part, it doesn’t bother you because your experiences with the police have been good ones.
The media is complicit with this cover-up. They have created an atmosphere in America where everyone is considered guilty until proven innocent. We read reports in the news and are convinced that it is an “isolated incident”…just a rogue cop…and it doesn’t affect me anyway…
But it does affect you. You just don’t know it because it hasn’t happened to you …yet.
Have you ever noticed that the media loves to call those who minister on the streets “protestors?” They never call the pro-aborts…or the sodomites…or the Muslims…”protestors.” No, they are “fighting for freedom.” Only Christians and Tea Party folks “protest”…everyone else “raises awareness.”
The folks I hang with don’t protest, they PROCLAIM…proclaim the Gospel. That activity is rapidly being curtailed by “legal system.” The First Amendment grants freedom to every type of deviant speech, but not to proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is becoming illegal.
It is happening, I might add, with the approval of the six-foot icicles who stand in most of America’s pulpits. They, too, think those of us who take seriously the command to “go ye into all the world” are radicals, fundamentalists, and “make Jesus look bad.” The average American Pastor has never spent a day of his/her life engaging in “open-air ministry” (streets preaching). They love to preach inside their stained-glass fortress where they can better hide from the controversy.
To them, one of the congregants complaining about pot holes in the parking lot is persecution…let alone facing a crowd of profoundly lost Muslims outside a Mosque as one faithfully delivers the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them.
My friend Pastor Mark Holick does just that. And last week he was found guilty by a jury of two counts of “loitering” outside a Mosque as he and several other gentle Christians handed out Bibles during the Muslim’s call to prayer. He was sentenced to six months in jail (suspended), one year probation, fined $300, and prohibited from being within 1000 feet of the Mosque.
Read the WND story here, but I am sure you won’t believe it. The media has convinced you that these “street preachers” are the next Timothy McVeigh. I am one of those “street preachers” and I have first hand experience with how we are treated.
Before Pastor Mark was sentenced he had the opportunity to address the court. I felt the readers needed to hear this humble, Godly-man’s open rebuke to the Judge, prosecutor, and press..BEFORE HE WAS SENTENCED…that takes cajones!
Your honor, Council
May we take faith this morning in Mt. 10. - That when we are arrested and handed over to court that the Lord will help us with what to say. May the Great Cloud of Witnesses record this day and this moment.
In October of 2010, 13 saints of the Lord went out to lovingly and freely offer free bibles to anyone willing to receive them. We went in obedience to our Lord Jesus who instructed us in Mk. 16, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
Though the others were doing the same thing I was - I was arrested, prosecuted-persecuted, convicted, and will be sentenced shortly as a common criminal with drug users and rapists.
This was not about blocking traffic, or blocking the sidewalk. No, this is about an idolatrous government that has rejected the Lord God Jesus. This is about a Government that has turned from the Lord God to the many gods' of pluralism.
There are a group of the Lord's Commandments so important that He wrote them with his own finger, we call them the 10 Commandments. The first one is #1 for a reason. - That shalt have no other god's before me. None, not any, not Buddha, not allah, not any. This arrest/trial/and conviction by the City of Wichita, the City attorney, the Wichita police and two courts is because the have forgotten Commandment #1.
Ps. 33:12 says that, "blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." The police, prosecution, and courts have forgotten Ps. 33:12. Just as the City of Wichita, police, and courts many years ago conferred upon abortion most favored business status, they have now conferred upon Islam, most favored religion status.
This trial was replete with government falsehoods and distortions.
Captain Jeffery Easter testified that the reason he - a captain answered this call was because he heard it come in and had recently been briefed on the all the violence against mosques. I thought, where have I been? What violence against mosques? So I looked it up. I found a grand total of 1 possibly 2 acts in the entire nation before Oct. of 2010. This is just one of multiple perjuries by Jeffery Easter.
Listen to the 911 call by the mosque. Not one reference to any traffic problems, not one indication of cars being blocked. No, it is clear that the reason they called was because - we were there peacefully offering free bibles. In fact the Islamists came out and told us to get off of the sidewalk, that it was their sidewalk. We did not leave, so they called police.
To which the police, city attorney, and courts were all too willing to act with expediency and malice to silence the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. It takes a village to convict a Christian.
You in authority quickly sided with the Islamists who speak of us as the Great Satan: Islamists who issued a fatwa against David Letterman for telling a joke about Al-Qaida. Islam is the most violent, repressive, tyrannical ideology in the world today.
Of the last 126 people who have been indicted in America for terrorist charges, all were Muslim. Not 90%, not 95%, all of them: Even though the DHS commercials picture white people as the terrorists.
A Harvard instructor may lose his job for an op-ed piece he wrote entitled, "how to wipe out Islamic terror."
After my arrest I asked my friend Rev. James to go to the local mosque in Wichita and ask them for a copy of the Koran. This is what they gave him. Here are just two verses:
Surah 5:72, they do blaspheme who say, " God is Christ the son of Mary," Surah 9:5, “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans, wherever you find them and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them, in every strategum (of war).
Wichita you are confused, I am not your enemy, Islam is. Thou shalt have no other gods' before me. Islamists believe that it is okay to lie if it is to help in the cause of allah. My own government called a foreign Islamist to testify for them against me, an American-born-Christian peacefully handing out free bibles.
The arresting officer said he is Christian. The court judge says he is Christian. The prosecutor says he is Christian. The City attorney says he is Christian. 4 of the 6 jurors say they are Christian.
And I have been convicted for handing out free bibles.
How sad, how incredibly sad… ( Please take the time to read his complete statement here. )
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.” Martin Niemoller
If only we had more pastors who would speak such piercing words to power. Drop Pastor Mark a line. Let him know how much you appreciate him fighting for all of us.
Christianity is being criminalized. It can’t happen here…in America…right?
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© 2011 Dave Daubenmire - All Rights Reserved
Coach Dave Daubenmire, founder and President of Pass The Salt Ministries www.ptsalt.com and Minutemen United www.minutemenunited.org, is host of the high octane Pass The Salt radio show heard in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1999 Coach Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU for praying with his teams while coaching high school in Ohio. He now spends his energy fighting for Christian principles in the public domain.
