Gospel Warrior Blog Post #2

The Slaughter of Christians around the world.

I think we as Americans take many things for granted. We have many more freedoms than pretty much any Country in the world. We can for the most part say what we want, we have freedom of the press and freedom of religion (more on that later). We have the right to keep and bear Arms so we can defend ourselves, our homes and our families. We have the right to our property and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures of our belongings. We can vote and have a say in who is governing us (for now). These are just a few of the rights secured in the Constitution for every American citizen. My opening line was that we take many things for granted, I think everything I have listed and more we take for granted. We have become so entitled to everything that “we deserve” and it’s always me, me, me or I want this or I don’t want this so.. All of this makes me think of what it says in James chapter 4. You want and you do not have, so you murder. We murder children in this Country because we say “it’s just not the right time for me right now” or “I’m in school and I can't take care of a child, it's inconvenient”. We justify the murder of human beings for them being inconvenient?! We are spoiled in America and it has made us a bunch of selfish cry babies.

Many people around the world and especially here in the United States don’t have a clue what some people around the world have to go through. As I said earlier, we take our freedoms lightly and we don’t think there would ever be a day or the possibility that we would/could lose them. I hope to give you a glimpse of reality during this blog and help you to realize that losing these freedoms may not be as far away as you might think, it starts with one and then the rest of them fall, that has been the historical pattern to this point. The main freedom I want to focus on is the “freedom of religion”.

Now, you might be thinking: “I don’t think we will ever lose the freedom of religion in America”. Well, you might be right (wait, what? Dude didn’t you just say in the last paragraph that we are going to lose it?). I don’t necessarily think the freedom of “religion” will go away but the freedom to be a follower of Jesus Christ is going away, and in many areas of the world just saying his name or proclaiming him as God will get you killed (more on that later as well). We have already begun to see Christians getting banned on social media like Facebook for posting sermons or posting the Gospel. These big platforms are slowly eliminating Christian content from their sites and eventually we won’t have the freedom of speech on these platforms (side note, you’re probably reading this on minds.com which is still allowing free speech right now). At the same time that censoring Christians is happening there is this watered down false gospel that is being spread throughout the U.S that Jesus loves everyone equally and no one is going to hell, just worship your god and we will all make it to a big party in heaven someday. These things go hand in hand with the elimination of true Christianity in the United States. What is going to happen is if you don’t believe in this 1 world religion and follow these false gods then you are going to be stopped. You are going to be arrested, you are going to be taunted, persecuted and ultimately you are going to be killed if you don’t submit to it.

That leads me to our current situation. As this is slowly happening in America it has already happened in many places all over the world (check out: persecution.com - voice of the martyrs website). There are Christians being persecuted, tortured and murdered all over the world every day. In North Korea if you don’t worship Kim Jong Un you are murdered, and your entire family will probably be murdered as well. In the past few months alone there have been over 300 Christians tortured and killed in Nigeria. In Islamic countries they label you as “”N” or Nazarene (they mark you as a follower of Christ). If they don’t kill you, the mark they leave on you lets every Muslim know that you are a Christ follower and they can do whatever they want to you without punishment from the law. The law favors their religion, their religion hates Christians. There is an interesting book out there called “I am n”. It is a story of Christians all over the world, true stories and you can see just how bad it really is. Christians don’t get jobs just because they are Christians, they get torn apart from their families, sometimes the men have to watch their children be murdered in front of them, their wife get raped and then murdered and then they are left alive to deal with the torment that they just saw. The Muslim leaders in these countries encourage their followers to target Christians, they say Allah will reward their “faith”. Boko Haram is the Islamic group in West Africa (Nigeria) that has done some of these horrible things to Christians. They continually kill Christian men, recruit their sons to joining Boko Haram, and take their wives and daughters as slaves or to be sold as human sex slaves. This group has been targeting more and more villages and starting to kill anyone who does not obey them, which will mean more and more Christians dying in the future.

Christian martyrdom is not something that has just started happening in the past couple years, it has been going on since Christ died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Acts 7:54 is the record of Stephen being martyred for the sake of Jesus Christ. Every one of the Apostles was martyred in some way, and all throughout history this has continued (you can read many stories in books like “Foxes book of martyrs”, “Jesus Freaks Vol I and II (published by VOM), “Tortured for Christ”, and “ I am N”. This is going to continue until Christ returns, we need to pray for the faith and endurance that only he can give us to make it through horrors like this.

Folks this is coming, it may be in the distant future and it may not start as extreme as it is in other countries because our system will slow that process dow, but you are going to see increased persecution and increased violence year after year. The first thing we need to do is pray. First of all, pray for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ that currently face these situations. You can look at a map of nations that openly persecute Christians on VOM website that I have shared in this blog earlier. Hebrews 13:3 calls us to “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Pray that God will protect our brothers and sisters and then pray that he will give us the faith and steadfastness that he has given to these believers around the world. When the time comes (and it will) will you be like these brothers and sisters and endure to the end? I pray to God that I will hold fast to him no matter what happens. If we remain steadfast to him we will hear “well done my good and faithful servant” when we meet HIM.

I hope this post has helped open your eyes to the reality of Christianity in the world today. It might be all sunshine and roses for you but it is not for others in the body of Christ around the world. Also, don’t expect it to continue that way, Jesus himself said that you will suffer for his name's sake. You need to be prepared to do so. You might want to do some self examination in fact, if your journey has been all sunshine and roses (see all the sufferings of the Apostle Paul). The Gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive to non-believers. They hate God, they are his enemies and they are offended by what you say. If people are not offended, maybe you are part of that “prosperity gospel”. Look at some of the best Gospel teachers in the Bible ( I know I cannot compare to the quality of them, but look at what happened to them when they preached the true Gospel of Jesus Christ). Jesus, was time after time accused of blasphemy by Jewish leaders. Paul was sought after to be killed multiple times, and as I said before the Apostles were martyred for sharing the Gospel. I hope this was encouraging for you, pray for our brothers and sisters. Pray for each other, pray for your family, pray for yourself. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.