RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT NEARS PASSING OF BILL RESTRICTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT NEARS PASSING OF BILL RESTRICTING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist News Service. Copyright 1997. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without permission from the author. Any articles which are redistributed by e-mail must be left intact and nothing must be removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our primary purpose is to provide information to assist preachers in the protection of the churches in this apostate hour. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, tell us who you are and where you are located, and request to be placed on the list. Also include your postal address and the name of the church of which you are a member. Some of these articles are from the "Digging in the Walls" section of O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 14th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. The Way of Life web site is http://www.wayoflife.org/.]

June 20, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The Communist-dominated lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday, 18 June for religious legislation to protect Russia’s traditional faiths and severely restrict the activities of foreign missionaries and minority religious groups (Ecumenical News International, June 19, 1997).

The bill, "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations," passed the second reading 337 to 5. It must pass a third reading and then go to President Boris Yeltsin for his signature. It is not known whether he will sign it.

The apostate Russian Orthodox Church, which worked hand-in-hand with the old communist dictatorship and which is jealous of other groups, has lobbied persistently for this bill in an attempt to gain control over foreign missionary work and to stem the tide of non-Orthodox church planting. It has a false gospel which says people are born again when they are "baptized" as infants and they are saved as they intermingle faith with the works and sacraments of Orthodoxy. When the true Gospel of salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ is preached to these people, the Russian Orthodox Church claims they are being "proselytized." In reality, they are being urged to turn from a false gospel to the true.

In obedience to 1 Timothy 2:1-4, God’s people need to be praying about the situation in Russia.

"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 4:1-4).

This passage explains why we should pray for government leaders: Governmental stability in a land provides a peaceful environment in which the Gospel can be proclaimed extensively. It is God’s will that all men be saved, and this can only happen when men hear and believe the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Those who do not treasure religious liberty, continually acknowledging that it is a precious gift from God in this present evil world, and who do not pray regularly for their leaders, are in danger of losing that liberty.