Don Finto

We are grateful for all the traditional Seders that are being held as believers from the nations are being restored to the biblical Jewish roots of our faith. I encourage you to participate in them as the Lord leads. Gather your family and friends together for a meal and "remember this day"—the Passover and the "last supper." Passover began at sundown yesterday, April 18.

You may choose to use a Haggadah (traditional Jewish way of remembering the evening). Or you may choose simply to read the Passover story from Exodus 12 and the account of the Passover evening meal with Yeshua and His disciples on the night of His betrayal (see Matt. 26:17-30) and to celebrate your own deliverance from slavery through the blood of Yeshua.

Egypt is in transition. President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, clearing the way for the armed forces to restore order and shepherd a transition to civilian rule in the September elections. An Open Doors source in the area says the reaction by Egyptian Christians to his resignation is mixed, and it is unclear how the resignation will affect the country's 10 million minority Christians. A spokesperson with Voice of the Martyrs says Egypt's military doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to Christians. There is still much communication going on—e-mails, phone calls, facebooking, tweeting, blogging, and perhaps also an increase in Bible reading, as we try to discern the course Egypt will take and how it will affect the world.

There are at least three Scripture passages that will ultimately come to bear on Egypt:

We are again experiencing the disappointment and even disillusionment that comes when perceived servants of God fail. This is a dangerous time for us. How will we respond? Will we privately rejoice because we saw flaws and cautions that others did not see? Do we discount those who were healed, who came to faith or who experienced the move of God? Are we to assume that everything was a farce? Was there never any real hunger for God? Was it all sham and hypocrisy?

Years ago when a prominent television evangelist's moral failure was exposed, another television evangelist was publicly harsh and judgmental in his assessment. The Lord laid on my heart to write that television evangelist a letter. "Brother, be careful. ‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matt. 7:1-2).'" A few weeks later the sexual failure of the man who had done the judging was paraded before the American public. Most of us would affirm the gifting that was in both these men, but their character did not match their gifting.