Last Sunday in HeBrews Coffee House we started out with a question . . . “What are you willing to die for?” We had various answers in class with people stating that they would be willing to die for children, spouses, or another family member. Thankfully, in our country we aren’t faced with this question on a regular basis. The persecution that we may receive is definitely nothing compared to what happens in the rest of the world.

Recently, I came across this current event on www.persecution.com

“On Dec. 23. several pastors and prayer group leaders in Hyderabad were attacked and severely beaten by Hindu extremists, VOM contacts report. The Christians were returning home from a Christmas prayer meeting near the suburb of Jamnagar. At the time of the report, three Hindus had been arrested for their involvement in the attack.”

We began to study Baptist History this past Sunday and learned that the last person to be executed by being burned at the stake in England was a Baptist pastor named Edward Wightman. Edward Wightman was born at Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. He married Frances Darbye of Hinckley on September 2, 1593. Edward and Frances settled in Burton, and they had seven children—2 boys and 5 girls. Wightman ran a successful mercer's business for a number of years in Burton. He denounced infant baptism and became a minister of the Baptist Church.

In 1611, Wightman presented a petition to King James, expounding his beliefs. For his beliefs, he was tried, found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death. Sentence was pronounced on December 14, 1611. The charges brought against him included eleven distinct heresies. Part of the charge was that he believed "that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord's Supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they now are in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part." Other charges included several unheard of opinions. His contemporaries said that if Edward really held all the opinions of which he was accused, he would have been either an idiot or a madman, and, if so, he ought to have had the prayers of his persecutors rather than to have them put him to a cruel death.

The authorities first carried out an aborted attempt at execution. When the flames started to burn Wightman, he shouted out something that seemed to imply that he had changed and was ready to accept the faith of the Church of England. The sheriff released him from the stake. Wightman refused to make a formal retraction and continued to preach his "heresies"; he was a few weeks later again tied to the stake and his body burned on April 11, 1612 at Lichfield. This same year another Baptist, Thomas Helwys, wrote A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, a plea for religious liberty in England. There were executions for heresy after Wightman, but his was the last burning.

We regularly baptize new converts at Canton Baptist Temple, and I am afraid that I get used to it sometimes. This past Sunday, we baptized 5 people and since I had just studied about Edward Wightman – it made me stop and thank the Lord for those who died so that I might have religious freedom.

I have many “soap boxes” but for the past several years one of them has been “mechanical Bible reading.” I have been guilty of encouraging people to read their Bible through in a year every year. I have done this several times myself. I can even remember one Christian periodical sending me envelopes with little boxes to check for each day of my scheduled Bible reading. Of course, the goal of the envelope was so that you could mail the periodical a check each month.

After mechanically reading my Bible through for several years in a row and not getting much out of it, I began to wonder if this is really what God intended for me to do. Reading the Bible through in a year is an excellent thing to do, but wouldn’t it be better for me spiritually to meditate on what I am reading? Meditation is reflective thinking with a view to living God's will as revealed in Scripture. God Himself invented the discipline of meditation. Unfortunately, Eastern religions have cleverly exported their brand of it, so that many Christians shy away from meditating on the Word. Biblical meditation is not clearing the mind of thought, as some religions teach. Our Teacher is the Holy Spirit. In meditation God's Spirit leads us to focus our minds on the living Lord revealed in the Word.

Meditation is as different from Bible reading as a one-way side street is from an eight-lane freeway. Reading is a one-way street, whereas meditation involves “two-way traffic.” 2 You encounter the living God, hearing His voice and learning from Him. At the same time, you respond to Him in prayer. Meditation's goal is a oneness with the living Lord.
God considers meditation so important that He commands us to do it. In the original Hebrew, one word for meditate in Scripture is hagah. The word is first found in Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” The word means to murmur (in pleasure or anger), to ponder, or to imagine.Moses, Joshua's predecessor, was leaving. He would not be on earth much longer to coach Joshua in his new and overwhelming position. After 40 years Moses knew the job well — so well, in fact, that he understood the spiritual stamina needed to be a successful leader. Moses was saying: “Joshua, day and night you must read, ponder, and apply God's Word. You must get continual guidance from your Boss, the God of the universe.”

Another classic passage using hagah is Psalm 1:2, 3 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” A second Hebrew word translated meditate is sîyach, meaning to ponder, to converse with oneself, to muse, or to pray. The word is first used in Psalm 119:15, “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.” Other synonyms for meditate are think, commune, consider, and remember. Mary, Jesus' mother, is particularly noted in Scripture for her thoughtful meditation on God's Word and ways: “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Andrew Murray, a missionary-pastor and the writer of more than 20 devotional books, says that a primary goal of meditation is nourishing the heart: “It is in meditation that the heart holds and appropriates the Word. . . . The intellect gathers and prepares the food upon which we are to feed. In meditation the heart takes it in and feeds on it.” In conclusion, I do not plan to read my Bible in 2009. Instead, I will meditate!