Satan makes a comeback (as always)
- Sep 19, 2008 - 1
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and its slave states, several historians and academicians rashly declared “the end of history.” The Cold War was over, along with the nuclear hair trigger under which the world had lived for more than four decades.
Many learned people believed that Western civilization had prevailed at long last, with its attendant liberal democracies and all the freedoms that went along with those democracies. Christians enthusiastically believed the world was safe for the spread of the Gospel, and perhaps for a while they were right.
For a short while, as it turned out.
The world is and always has been a dangerous place for Christians. Now it seems that Satan, who was rocked back on his heels for a time, has regained lost momentum. All around the world, he’s making a comeback—as he always has.
The communist government in China, emboldened by the West’s limp response to authoritarian measures imposed during the just-completed Olympics in Beijing, is confidently planning an unprecedented purging of unregistered house churches in that country.
“Tragically but predictably, the Olympics have been the occasion of a massive crackdown designed to silence and put beyond reach all those Chinese whose views differ from the government line,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey. “For so many brave Chinese men and women…this has been a terrible summer, not in spite of but precisely because of the Olympic Games.”
Zhou Yongkang, head of the all-powerful Central Political and Legislative Committee within the Communist Party, who has called for “extraordinary measures” against unregistered house churches in a country where churches must register with the state and adhere to a strict set of rules for engaging in worship.
Such statements leave no doubt that Christianity is in danger in the land of Lottie Moon, perhaps as never before, but China is by no means alone in its persecution of Christians.
As reported in the article below, Hindus in the Indian state or Orissa are murdering Christians in revenge for the assassination of a prominent Hindu swami. Although indigenous Christians in that state comprise around 2.4% of the total population and have no political power, they are being blamed for the death of the swami and have been targeted en masse for violent reprisals.
It doesn’t matter that the local government doesn’t believe Christians are responsible and has even fingered a terrorist group as the actual assassins, Christians are paying the 2,000-year-old price for being Christians.
The total surviving Christian population in at least one Orissa town has fled to the local forests with no food or shelter, and little expectation for returning to their homes. What a sad state of affairs.
In Sudan, Christians continue to be persecuted despite that corrupt government’s assurances that such persecution has been officially halted. In the recent past, Christian parents have been executed in front of their young children who were then sold into sexual slavery across the Arab world.
In July of this year, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, requested an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan’s militant Islamic regime, charging him with genocidal acts in the Darfur region. No one really knows how many Christians have died during Omar Hassan al Bashir’s bloody regime, but the country’s Christian population inarguably has been decimated.
Yet these faithful followers around the world hang on, if only by the thinnest of threads. Jesus warned as of such times (Matt. 24:9, Luke 21:16-17), but it still hurts to watch believers go through such trials—especially as we sit safe, comfortable, and protected in our great country.
Let us not take for granted God’s manifold gifts to us. Let us pray as never before for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. They are living a faith of bravery and commitment, such as American Christians have never experienced.
Someday soon, though, we may. We may.
This article is reprinted from the September 4, 2008, issue of The Baptist Record, the newsjournal of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
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1 On Sep 23rd, 2008, at 8:58am, eric wrote:
“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” --- Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.