This past week, America was rocked, once again, by a school shooting, in which a crazed individual, fueled by evil, killed 9 Americans, and wounded dozens more.
The New York Post reported that those who were slain, had something in common.
A gunman singled out Christians, telling them they would see God in “one second,” during a rampage at an Oregon college Thursday that left at least nine innocent people dead and several more wounded, survivors and authorities said.“[He started] asking people one by one what their religion was. ‘Are you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and if you’re a Christian, stand up. And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.’ And then he shot and killed them,” Stacy Boylen, whose daughter was wounded at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., told CNN.
A Twitter user named @bodhilooney, who said her grandmother was at the scene of the carnage, tweeted that if victims said they were Christian, “then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.”
Gunman Chris Harper-Mercer’s disdain for religion was evident in an online profile, in which he became a member of a “doesn’t like organized religion” group on an Internet dating site.
Kortney Moore, 18, said she saw the teacher of her Writing 115 class get shot in the head at the college’s Snyder Hall before the gunman started asking people to state their religion and opening fire, the city’s News-Review newspaper reported.
Harper-Mercer, 26, was killed in a shootout with police outside one of the classrooms, said Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin.
“There was an exchange of gunfire,” he said. “The shooter threat was neutralized.”
Although police put the death toll at 10 — including Harper-Mercer — with seven people injured, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum had said 13 people died.
I have written in the past that American Christians are fighting a war against an effort to undercut our faith, severely limiting our practice of it in everyday life.
With the present Administration spearheading the effort, Christian Americans are being marginalized , and our faith ridiculed and attacked as being against “diversity”, as the First Lady alluded to in her speech at a Topeka, Kansas Graduation Ceremony, which I wrote about in May of 2014.
As bad as things are getting in our country, Christians are not facing the choice of whether to renounce Jesus Christ as our Savior or die a martyr…yet.
On May 15th, 2014, in front of a judge in a Sudanese court, Meriam Yahia Ibrahim forthrightly declared that she was still, and always will be, a follower of Jesus Christ. The judge at the Public Order Court in El Haj Yousif Khartoum then confirmed her sentence of 100 lashes for adultery and death by hanging for apostasy.
Ibrahim told the judge after a Muslim scholar spent 40 minutes persuading her to recant,
I am a Christian, and I have never been a Muslim.
In response, the judge told her,
The court has sentenced you to be hanged till you are dead.
The sentence is to be carried out two years after her second child’s birth later this month.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that the death sentence in the case, which is drawing international attention, and called the ruling a “violation of the Sudanese Constitution and of international conventions to which Sudan is party.”
According to Middle East Concern, Ibrahim’s lawyer is appealing the ruling. Ibrahim’s American husband was also not permitted to witness the hearing, and has been denied visitation rights to see his wife and son while they are detained in prison.
Ahead of the hearing on the 15th, Amnesty International condemned Ibrahim’s death sentence and called for her immediate release. According to Manar Idriss, Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher:
The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is abhorrent and should never be even considered. ‘Adultery’ and ‘apostasy’ are acts which should not be considered crimes at all, let alone meet the international standard of “most serious crimes” in relation to the death penalty. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law.
In July 2012, Saeed Abedini, an American pastor who is a dual Iranian-American citizen, went back to Iran to visit family and continue his work on a government approved orphanage. While in that Radical Islamic county, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps placed Saeed under house arrest without charge. He was then sent to Evin Prison in September 2012.
In January, Saeed was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was charged with preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Saeed is not guilty of breaking any Iranian law. However, he was convicted of endangering national security because of gathering with other believers in private homes.
While in prison, Saeed has suffered internal bleeding from beatings and endured solitary confinement in an effort to make him recant his faith.
Although he has been denied medical attention, Saeed’s faith remains as strong as ever, as he continues to lead people to Christ while in prison.
His beloved wife, Naghmeh, and their children have not seen Saeed in over a year. During his most recent time in solitary confinement, Saeed once said that he felt many people praying and the time in solitary was a time of intimacy with God. When he came out, the other prisoners said he was glowing. In fact, Saeed said he was filled with more joy and peace after solitary than going in.
In a letter to Naghmeh, Saeed shared how he has hope despite the daily beatings he endures.
I heard that the persecution, my arrest and imprisonment has united churches from different denominations, from different cities and countries that would never come together because of their differences. That the churches have united together in prayer to put one request (my freedom) on one day (Pentecost) before God. You don’t know how happy I was in the Lord and rejoiced knowing that in my chains the body of Christ has chained together and is brought to action and prayer.
Would I be willing to die for my Savior?
Believe it or not, I have actually been asked that question by other Americans before by non-believers, both young and old, on Facebook Political Pages, who could not fathom a faith comprised of unconditional love, supplied by a Triune God, who accepts his imperfect children, just as we are, without one plea. Bring a Love that will not let me go, no matter how many times I stumble, no matter how many times I fall, He always picks me back up, and helps me to continue to walk in faith, hope, and love. But, the greatest of these is love.
There was a “libertarian” (actually, a Liberal) who made fun of believers on a Facebook Political Page which I post on, by posting the words, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, attempting to point out Christian Hypocrisy…or something.
This “self-proclaimed genius” evidently neglected to read the lyrics of this great old hymn…
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
forward into battle see his banners go!
Refrain:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.2. At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
on then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.
(Refrain)3. Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
(Refrain)4. Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
but the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
we have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.
(Refrain)5. Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud, and honor unto Christ the King,
this through countless ages men and angels sing.
(Refrain)
I pray that God will open this unbeliever’s eyes one day. However, until He does, this unbeliever and his fellow travelers will be oblivious to the fact that the war Christians fight is not against flesh and blood, but instead against “Princes and Principalities”.
And, to answer the question I raised earlier….
Yes. I would be willing to give my life for Christ.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
May God continue to the strengthen those Christians, who are facing persecution and death, around the world, and may He continue to hold them and their loved ones in the Hollow of His Hand.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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