As you are reading this, I would appreciate your prayers, as Wendy and I are in Montreal today through Thursday at the South Metropolitan Bible Baptist Church. Pastor Mario Monette gave me the privilege of preaching in their annual Missions Conference. Some time ago the Canadian government cut off our sister independent Baptist churches there from sending missions support to any other countries in the normal fashion we can do it. The church there has faithfully continued to support home and foreign missions, but they have had to jump through some government hoops to accomplish it. Bro. Monette has had to travel to foreign fields and establish personal connections with missionaries and missions works in order to comply with the Canadian government’s requirements.
As you may know, freedom of religion, as we know it here, is far more restricted in Canada. Of course, we know that ongoing efforts are being made here, in some circles, to curtail and restrict our religious freedoms. Some of these more radical secularists say they don’t want freedom of religion, they want freedom from religion.
If all a person has is a nominal commitment to God, faith, the church, and the Bible, the erosion of religious freedoms won’t have much impact. If government stepped in, as it does some places, and issued an edict restricting church gatherings to one hour per week, a lot of people wouldn’t be affected by that. We ought to take every advantage we have of the freedom to gather together for worship, fellowship and the preaching of the Word, since we still have that freedom. After all, it is what we ought to do. Hebrews 10:24-25, And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.