Persecute Children?

Psalm 51:15

The Voice (VOICE)

¹⁵ O Lord, pry open my lips
    that this mouth will sing joyfully of Your greatness.

[i]

Jocelyn (not her real name) was a student in a local public middle school. Their class had been studying Islam in their religion class. The class syllabus had them study all of the major world religions, except Christianity, in reasonable depth. They took at least three weeks for each religion. Students were required to try and think like a Muslim or a person in whatever religion they were studying at the time. They were to find all of the good things about the religion and not allowed to say anything negative about it.

In my schooling, the 8^th grade was the time our class went through the doctrines our church taught very, very thoroughly and completely. To this day the concepts I have of our doctrines is what I remember from that course when I was 12 years old. Naturally over the years my mature, analytical mind has reevaluated how I think about them today, but the foundation was laid that year−the year I was baptized. So personally, I regard that time frame in a child’s life as being most formative.

Jocelyn is by nature a very shy and retiring student, not wanting to make waves. She was unable to reconcile what she was learning in school and the fanatical Islamic terror tactics that she saw each night on TV. Finally the Lord opened her mouth, and she told her class that she is a Christian saved by grace and that “there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” The teacher was horrified and sent her to the principal. The principal suspended her from school. He later told Jocelyn’s father that it is illegal to mention the name of Christ in a California public school. Jocelyn was not to come back to school until she signed a contract that she would not talk about Christ or Christianity on campus ever again. Of course her parents, who are new Christians attending one of the popular mega-churches, could not tolerate that denial of the American Bill of Rights to their daughter and have moved her to a Christian school.

Martin Luther, who suffered extreme opposition and persecution throughout his life, commented about this verse. “By asking the LORD to open his lips, David showed how difficult it is to offer thanks to God. This is something God demands of us. Talking about the Lord and thanking him publicly require an extreme amount of courage and strength because the devil is constantly trying to stop people from doing this. If we could see all of Satan’s traps, we would know why David prayed for the Spirit’s strength and asked the Lord himself to open David’s lips. He wanted to tell the devil, the world, kings, princes, and everyone about the Lord.”[ii]

Lord, open my lips and then use them to speak Your praises.

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[i] http://koha.andrews.edu/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=725217&query_desc=au%3A%22Gow%2C%20Haven%20Bradford.%22

[ii][ii] Martin Luther By Faith Alone: 365 Devotional Readings Update in Today’s Language,  ed. James C. Galvin (pub. 1998 by World Bible Pub. Iowa Falls, IA) from the page for November 15.