Tribulation

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?  Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. -- Revelation 6:9-11

The Great Tribulation is when those who confess Christ and refuse to back down are beheaded.  Of course, that will happen only to those who are left behind in the Rapture.  I guess it's tribulation when it happens to a Christian in Egypt, the Sudan, or China.  It's only the Great Tribulation if it happens to Baptists in Dallas or Catholics in Chicago.

I heard some comedian say the other day that we couldn't defeat ISIS by killing them.  No, wait, that wasn't a comedian.  That was Marie Harf speaking on behalf of John Kerry's State Department.  Ms. Harf says that ISIS fighters need jobs.  We should bring them over to California and put them to harvesting head lettuce.

History is not at an end in 2015.  We have a fight on our hands.  We need to pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, for Christians and Jews alike.  To some extent, I actually agree with the State Department spokesbunny in that military might alone is an insufficient solution for the problem of evil.  We do not war according to the flesh.  Our weapons are not tanks and planes and bombs.  We have the power through Christ to destroy the strongholds of evil, to demolish the excuses and justifications of our enemies (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

The blood of Christians dying for the Name of Christ, wherever it takes place, cries out to God, and God will answer.  There are Christians in nearly every Muslim country.  There are also often western missionaries, though forbidden to proselytize, working discreetly in those nations.  Western governments, for the most part, lack the political will to face down, stop, and destroy those who murder and rape in the name of Allah.  Every Christian needs to understand the times in which we live, and the persecutions we are about to face.  It may not happen where I live in my lifetime, but it is happening now in many places, and it will happen here if we do not change our way of thinking.  We need to teach our children that Christianity is more than a comforting practice, a ritual, and a code.  We live for Christ, and we must be willing to die for Him.  

We live in a time when it is one thing to say that we are Christians, that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  It is another thing to say that there is salvation in no other name.  But I will say it:  Jesus is our only hope.  In the end, nothing else will matter.