Contrast makes things clearer.
“While we were yet weak, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Rarely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
How much more then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, how much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.”
Romans 5:6-10
The Lion became The Lamb, to lay down His life for the sins of the world. Like a bloody underline for this point, ISIS jihadists bombed two Christian Churches in Egypt killing at least 47 people and injuring more than 100 others. On Palm Sunday no less. In the sanctuary of those churches no less.
This is Passover.
If there was any reminder that we need a Saviour, this is it. If there was any reminder of The Passion of The Christ, this is it. Let what they meant for evil be turned to good by the bold declarations of these reminders.
Through prayer and action, let us uphold all involved for the strength and grace to endure and overcome this. All means all – including the perpetrators of these heinous acts who are also victims. Victims to an ideology which has so brutalised their hearts, minds and spirits that they think such acts are honourable.
Despite evidence to the contrary, there will be talk of Islam being a religion of peace. While most Muslims are not violent, the same cannot be said of Islam itself. The following are some insights into that.
Firstly, a video presentation by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Aside from stating that Islam can be reformed from its violent roots (other insiders do not think so) and an irrelevant reference to Christianity’s reformation (the very nature of God versus allah as well as the statics of religion and wars demonstrates this), it is a good look at the challenges we face today. Challenges which will consume us all if not recognised and faced down.
Secondly, here’s some pertinent , sobering insights from Ravi Zacaharias (as written in “Jesus Among Secular Gods”)…
I will never forget talking to a former Muslim who had committed his life to Jesus Christ and who gave me a fascinating word picture. He drew two circles and put a small dot in each of them. Pointing to the first, he said, “As a Muslim, I believed the circle to be my faith and the little dot to be my life.” Then he pointed to the next circle and said, “Now, as a follower of Jesus, I have seen the difference in the cultural tension. To many Westerners, the circle is his life and the dot is his faith.”
In other words, a Muslim believed that life was expendable, his faith paramount. The Westerner, he charged, regards his life more important than what he believes. “That is why,” he added, “the West will ultimately be overrun. Faith, in the West, is sort of an extracurricular interest and a mere aspect of life for the sake of inner peace. But faith seldom enters the conscience as a conviction.”
That was truly a sobering revelation of just how faith is viewed by most in the West, let alone the plurality of faiths that exist. In fact, the very word faith is now used in less than flattering terms. The real world is considered intellectually rigorous, and the world of ultimate reality-faithfanciful, not to be entertained in factual terms. How fascinating that is. So the values by which we live are parked on the shifting mix of quicksand the skeptic calls “faith,” while the world of pragmatic and real understandings is supposedly built on the bedrock of the sciences called “reason.”
Is my friend right?
If he is right, I will go so far as to say that the West is on the verge of collapse at the hands of its own secular intellectuals. It is only a matter of time. The Christian faith brings with it convictions by which to stand and build a moral framework. The secular thinker, with his implicitly amoral assumptions, imagines that knowledge without a moral base has enough sustaining power. It simply doesn’t.
Watch Europe cower under the heel of Islamists who have not forgotten that they were stopped from overtaking Europe and beaten back by Charles Martel thirteen centuries ago. Now, with patience and the clever control of demographics and a gullible media, they stand by, ready to one day take over the structures and edifices built by a different ethic and a different belief system. It is only a matter of time, and they are in no hurry. Thirteen centuries ago, Europe was able to stop the theocratic Islamic tidal wave because it had a faith to defend. The value-less culture of today will not be able to withstand the attack.
Years ago, while Hitler was making plans to overrun the world and some were attempting to placate him in order to save themselves from having to make a moral justification for war, Winston Churchill made a telling speech in the House of Commons on October 5, 1938. (“The Munich Agreement” is also known by the title “A Total and ‘Unmitigated Defeat,” referring to the mollifying treaty brought back by Neville Chamberlain.) Quoting from Scripture, Churchill declared, “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27 ESV). Then he ended his speech saying, “And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
Fear not but sit not either. Work while it is still daylight.
“As He went along, He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
John 9:1-5
Barry
Where to start? I’m tired of hearing that Islam is a religion of peace. Frankly, there is quite a lot of evidence to the contrary and it’s time to stop pussy-footing around the issue for the sake of the PC brigade and actually call a spade a spade. Here is something I know for sure: Every one of the people who flew aeroplanes into the WTC and the Pentagon was Muslim. Every one who blew trains and buses up in London was Muslim. Every one who blew trains up in Madrid was Muslim. Every one who stabs and innocent Israeli or runs them over with a car is Muslim. Every one involved in the Paris/Charlie Hebdo/Jewish Kosher shop atrocity was Muslim. Every one involved in the bombing at Paris football stadium was Muslim. The ones who killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Games were Muslim. The one who drove a truck which killed dozens of people in Nice was a Muslim. The one who drove a truck into Christmas shoppers in Berlin was Muslim. The one who drove a car across Westminster bridge and killed another few was Muslim. The one who drove a truck into shoppers in Stockholm last week was Muslim. The two who chopped off the head of a British soldier in London broad daylight were Muslim. The ones who shot dozens of people enjoying a day out at the beach in Morocco were Muslim. The ones who chopped of the heads of a line of 21 Christians were Muslim. The ones who carried out multiple terrorist attacks in Istanbul were Muslim. The ones who carried out multiple terrorist attacks in Brussels were Muslim. The one who shot and killed people enjoying a coffee at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney was Muslim. Every single suicide bomber of the last two decades in, for example, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Yemen, Iraq…oh, and Egypt last week…were Muslim. The one who stabbed film maker Theo van Gogh was a Muslim. The ones who advocate death for apostates are Muslim. And here’s the kicker…this is where the rubber hits the road…Islam is the only religion, whose founder, a false prophet, explicitly approves of this evil. Islam is the only religion whose followers are explicitly instructed to carry out this evil IN THE NAME OF THEIR god. A god, by the way, who, among his 99 attributed names, does not count among them anything to do with love. A religion whose followers believe that the angel Gabriel said to Mo “far be it from god that he should have a son”…the same Gabriel who was sent by the God of the bible 700 years previously to visit Mary and told her “You will give birth to a Son. He will be called the Son of the Most High.” So we see that the very birth of the religion of peace was founded on a lie.
I could go on but I haven’t got all day. I know and have known a number of Muslim people. I’ve met many others. They have all been very nice people – peaceful, even. They would not advocate the evil described above. There was one chap I remember fondly from my days in London. I was fond him as a person…great to work with and we nicknamed him Mr Cool. He said to me one time “It’s funny that I work for a Jew….I used to shoot at them when I lived in Beirut.” What a character!
There are some, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Abdel Fatah Al Sisi and Maajid Nawaz who are Muslims or former Muslims, who have called for reform of the religion of Islam. Any while the vast majority of Muslims are happy to live in peace with their neighbours, there are, sadly, a great many who despise the very notion of Western democracy and the freedoms it affords. The fact that the vast majority of the followers of Mohammed are decent, law-abiding, peaceful people – is missing the point. There is a virulent, cancerous strain, which is anything but.
The failure of the peaceful majority is this: they fail themselves and the rest of the world, by refusing to acknowledge the explicit evil intentions of their Islamic texts. When do we hear unequivocal denunciation of the atrocities listed above by the peaceful majority? When do we see any peaceful Muslim attempt to critique the texts of Islam and tell us, clearly, how that text is to be interpreted and applied in the 21st century? Such self-examination may be difficult, but it is necessary. Any religion worth its salt, should be able to stand up to the harshest critique. Islam does not stand up to any critique. Nor do those who keep pushing the “religion of peace” narrative accept any criticism of the religion – or even any discussion of it. The problem the West faces is not just the Islamic terrorists, but those in our midst who try to defend the indefensible for the sake of PC BS. It’s time for the West to wake up and it’s time for the silent majority of Muslims to hijack their “religion of peace” back.