(Audio Version)
Introduction
All times in history have seen their own variation of evil.
In the Old Testament era, civilizations witnessed the rise of the Egyptians who
enslaved and persecuted the Israelites for 400 years. After that time, God sent
Moses to deliver them from their bondage and they eventually settled in the
land of Canaan that was promised to them by God. There the people established
the nation of Israel. Nevertheless, Israel would be conquered in the 8th
century BC by a new evil empire—The Assyrians. Pictorial engravings recovered
by archaeologists depict Assyrian warriors creating piles made from the heads
of those they conquered. The Assyrians were well known for the fierce cruelty.
Nevertheless, the Assyrians would bow in defeat to the Babylonians. There would
be a succession of evil empires from the 8th century BC all the way
into the New Testament era. The Babylonian empire would give way to the Persian
empire and the Persians and other smaller empires would eventually be defeated
by the mighty Roman empire. It can be safely assumed that each succeeding
empire needed to not only match the brutality of the people they conquered but
needed to exceed it on some level. The history of the Roman empire would
certainly support this assumption. Don’t forget, they were the ones who
perfected the use of the cross as a means of intimidation, torture and
execution. They were also the ones who, for entertainment, sewed Christians into
animal skins and then set hungry lions on them in the arena in front of
cheering Roman crowds. In the succession of these empires, evil was always
present. However, evil was not a constant. Instead, evil had a trajectory that
sought to extinguish anything that was good in society. As societies expanded
and grew, evil was always present; always expanding; always growing. If you
will open your mind’s eye to it, you will see that evil has always had its
sights set on subverting and destroying God’s salvation plan—initially by
seeking to destroy Israel according to the Old Testament and then by seeking to
destroy Christianity according to the New Testament. There are those who
naively insist that this evil was contained in an era where people didn’t know
any better and that advancements in science, technology, and human behavioral
understanding changed all that in the modern and post-modern era. This thinking
is the result of a belief that we are constantly evolving and growing and given
enough time, humanity will manage to rid society of evil. In the wise words of
my daughter Meagan, these people believe that in time we will live in a world
filled with butterflies and unicorns. But I live in the real world so let’s
take a look at how people, Jews and Christians in particular, have been treated
by just three well-known evil ideologies: Nazism, Communism, and Islam:
A Great
Evil
When
we hear the word “Nazi,” most of us think about the atrocities of the Holocaust
where more than six million Jews were exterminated in an attempt by Hitler to wipe
out Judaism. However, Freya Petersen, in an article for the Global Post reveals that researchers for
the US Holocaust Memorial Museum have catalogued more than 42,500 ghettos and
labor camps operated by Hitler’s regime. I can attest to this because my mother
and her family, who were Catholic Christians, were interned in one of those
camps as she fled from her birthplace of Romania ahead of the communist
invasion advancing from the North. Many non-Jews, many of whom were Christians,
died from disease and hunger in these lesser-known camps including some of my
mother’s younger siblings. Some of these camps were known as killing centers where
pregnant mothers were forced to have abortions and new-born babies were killed.
Although the six million Jews who were exterminated is not in any way in
dispute, researchers are finding that Nazism is responsible for as many as
twenty million deaths from Russia to France.[1]
However, the United States and its allies eventually put an end to Hitler’s plan
for world domination and liberated Europe from the scourge of Nazism. But would
this be the end of evil? Not even close.
A Greater
Evil
As
shocking as the atrocities of the Nazi’s may have been, the rise of Communism
would quickly overshadow the brutality of the Nazi’s. One of the core tenets of
Communism is its atheistic worldview. Consequently, people of faith immediately
became enemies of Communism. Author, Robin Shepherd, in an article published by
TheCommentator provides a rough
estimate of those who have died at the hand of Communism. Shepherd concedes
that it is difficult to ascertain the true number of deaths because, “Communist
regimes went to great lengths to conceal their crimes, and one of the most
oppressive of all, North Korea, still exists to this day.” Nevertheless, it is conservatively
estimated that Communism is responsible for nearly 100 million deaths![2]
Pastor Richard Wurmbrand is from my mother’s home country of Romania. Wurmbrand
is a Christian pastor born into a Jewish family. Wurmbrand is referred to as
the “St. Paul of the Iron Curtain.” In 1959 he was arrested for preaching ideas
contrary to Communist doctrine. Wurmbrand recounts some of his experiences
while in prison in his book Tortured for
Christ:
“The tortures and brutality continued
without interruption. When I lost consciousness or became too dazed to give the
torturers any further hopes of confession, I would be returned to my cell.
There I would lie, untended and half dead, to regain a little strength so they
could work on me again. Many died at this stage, but somehow my strength always
managed to return. In the ensuing years, in several different prisons, they
broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a
dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body. When my family and
I were ransomed out of Romania and brought to Norway, doctors in Oslo, seeing
all this and the scars in my lungs from tuberculosis, declared that my being
alive today is a pure miracle! According to their medical books, I should have
been dead for years.”[3]
The
Greatest Evil Yet
And
just when we think that evil couldn’t get any worse, we come to the greatest
evil yet—Islam. Often referred by the foolish among us as the “Religion of
Peace.” Really? Let’s take a look shall we? Islam was birthed by Mohammed (born
570 AD; died 632 AD) who claimed the Koran was revealed to him in the early 7th
century AD by God. Without getting into the complexities of the history of
Islam along with its theological and ideological intricacies, let me just give
you an idea of the two basic tenets that build the foundation of Islam: Allah
(Arabic for God) is the one and only God and Islam is the only true religion. Islam
wouldn’t be the first world religion to make this claim except for one
particular distinction—those who don’t agree with Islam’s claims deserve harsh
punishment and death. That’s definitely an important distinction don’t you
think? In one of the chapters of the Koran, the chapter Sura, is quite
revealing about this “Religion of Peace.” “Sura 9:5 says, ‘Fight and slay the
idolaters wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in
wait for them.’ What may be considered crimes against the state [the only valid
state according the Islam being an Islamic Caliphate] and crimes against God
are dealt with in Sura 5:33. ‘The punishment of those who wage war against God
and His Apostle [Muhammed], and strive with might and main for mischief through
the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or cutting off of hands and feet from
opposite sides, or exile from the land.’ Jews and Christians are ‘People of the
Book’ (Sura 5:5; 5:19), but that does not mean that Muhammed had the highest
regard for them; in Sura 5:41 Jews are called people “who will listen to any
lie’ and Christians are enemies (Sura 5:14), and Muslims were not to have
Christians and Jews as friends (Sura 5:51).”[4]
So how do these verses translate into real life? Columnist Mike Konrad, in an
article written for American Thinker
chronicles the historic brutality of Islam where he writes, “The enormity of
the slaughters of the ‘religion of peace’ are so far beyond comprehension that
even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic
focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar
none.” In his article, Konrad follows the bloody trail and dead bodies of Islam
through the ages and concludes that Islam is responsible for the deaths of at
least 250 million people.[5]
And this profound evil continues in our own time as daily we receive reports from
the Middle East of the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas in Palestine firing
more than 3,500 rockets aimed at the populated cities of Israel seeking to
fulfill its charter of driving the Jews into the sea. Daily we receive reports
of the terrorist group “IS” (Islamic State) sweeping the countries of the
Middle East leaving the dead bodies of Christians in their path. Some have been
given the option of converting to Islam, pay a tax they cannot afford, flee to
another country, or be killed. Others have only been given the option to
convert or die. There are some areas of the Middle East where Christianity has existed
since the time of Christ where it has now all but been eradicated by Islam. I
can’t even begin to tell you how heartbroken I have been at the reports the Christians
are being slaughtered in some cases by crucifixion. In recent days the
brutality has reach new lows when it was reported that children of Christians were
being buried alive or beheaded in front of their parents. In an interview this
week, Andrew White, an Anglican minister in Baghdad, Iraq reported, “‘I’m
almost in tears I’ve just had somebody in my room whose little child was cut in
half,’ he said ‘I baptized his child in my church in Baghdad. This little boy,
they named him after me—he was called Andrew.”[6]
The
Solution
Hitler’s
reign came to an end at the hands of America and her allies’ superior military
might. However, the reign of evil did not end, it only changed hands. Where
Nazi brutality left off, Communism picked up. Although President Reagan dealt a
severe blow to Communism when America emerged victorious over the Soviet Union at
the end of the Cold War, Communism is alive and well in places like China and
North Korea. And more recently Communism has found a kind of renaissance in Russia,
the former Soviet Union. Led by Russian President Putin, a former KGB
intelligence agent of the Soviet Union, Russia has undertaken a campaign to try
and take back, by force if necessary, some of the surrounding regions it once
controlled like the sovereign country of Ukraine. So again, evil did not end
and now it has grown by unimaginable proportions to include the evils of Islam.
So how can we put an end to this evil once and for all? Our President has
authorized limited military intervention in response to the Islamic barbarism.
Is this the right response? Will this solve the problem; the problem of evil?
Honestly, I’m a pastor and know next to nothing about the complexities of
geo-politics around the world. What I do know is that military force can change
the course of nations but military force cannot change the hearts and minds of
people even if it can destroy their physical bodies. What I do know is that the
evil perpetrated by people will not end unless people change and people won’t
change until they are transformed; until their hearts and minds are transformed.
What does all this evil share in common? Unbelief or wrong-belief. The Nazi’s
suffered from both, Communists suffer from unbelief, and Islam suffers from
wrong-belief, but the result in each case is life ruled by evil. I may not know
anything about geo-politics, but I do know something about the way God operates
in the lives of people. God is not primarily interested in geo-politics even
though He is sovereign over all nations. Instead, God is primarily interested
in people and He is especially interested in being in relationship with people.
It was for this very reason that He sent Jesus.
Transforming
Evil
From the start, the mission of this ministry has been to
obey Jesus’ command to preach the Gospel and to make disciples of all nations.
In my small mind, I understood this in the context of God wanting to be in a
relationship of love with his creation. And while that’s true, it’s only part
of the story. The other reason God commands that the Gospel be preached to the
nations is that He knows that the Truth of the Gospel has the power to
transform the hearts and minds of people set on the path of evil even if those
people refuse to admit or are unable to see that that is the path they are
traveling. When Jesus was on trial before Pilate, Pilate asked Him if he was
the King of the Jews. “Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king. In
fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to
testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me (Jn 18:37).’”
Why is this important? It’s important because truth has the power to transform
lives. When we reach the point of believing that Jesus testifies to truth then
we can believe something else Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life (Jn 3:16).” Some people have a hard time believing God’s
truth can transform evil but I know it can because it transformed the evil in me.
I realize that most of you don’t know me so that probably doesn’t mean much but
I’m not the only one so let me tell you the story of a few other people so that
maybe you will be convinced that Jesus’ love has the power to transform.
Maximilian Kolbe, Germany, 1941
“The
siren sounded and prisoners of Maximilian Kolbe’s bunker were led out into the
summer morning. From the activities of the German guards it was obvious that
something was wrong. Maximilian looked at the guard towers and watched the
officers standing stiffly as he and the other prisoners were gathered before
them.
The
commandant of the prison camp stepped forward. ‘There has been an escape! As
you know, for this ten of you will die. Let that be a lesson to the rest of
you—your freedom will cost the lives of ten other men.’
Ten
men were selected from among the ranks and brought to the front. Maximilian
watched as Sergeant Francis Gajoniczek was marched forward. ‘No, no, you can’t!
I don’t want to die.’
At
this, Maximilian stepped forward. ‘Sir, I am a priest. Let me take his place. I
am old. He has a wife and a child.’
The
officer looked at him for an instant, then at the young man. He could certainly
use the young man more for the daily labors that were required of the
prisoners. ‘All right. You, back in line. Old man, you go with the others.’
The
ten men were taken to a cell, where they were left to starve. All the while
there, Maximilian comforted the others with prayers, songs, and stories of Christ’s
sacrifice for all of them. At the end of the two weeks only four of them were
still alive and only Maximilian was fully coherent. These four were then
executed with an injection of carbolic acid.”[7]
Abbot Iscu, Romania, 1951
“Abbot
Iscu lay quietly awaiting death in the Tirgul-Ocna prison as a result of the
tortures he had endured at the hands of his Communist captors. He spoke very
little and looked serene as he felt heaven draw closer. If he did speak, his
words carried the weight of eternity, and all attention in the cellblock
suddenly focused to listen to him. Yet each breath he took revealed the pain
that wracked his body.
Across
from him, horrified at the sight of the abbot, lay another prisoner near death.
He was once a Communist officer, and it was at his hands that the abbot had
been tortured to the point of death. He had been a faithful Communist, and for
this he now shared the cell of those he had been told to make ‘recant the
Christian superstition’ for the sake of the party. As a result of something
none of the other prisoners ever learned, he had been imprisoned as well and
tortured by his own comrades.
Though
he, too, was at the point of death, he could find no peace in death. He awoke
in the middle of the night in a heavy sweat and grabbed the arm of the person
nearest him. He knew most in that cellblock were Christians, so he begged
prayer. ‘I have committed horrible crimes. I can find no rest. Help me,
please.’
Because
of the damp cold and never really knowing when it was day or night, many in the
cell were still awake. At the Communist torturer’s words, Abbot Iscu motioned
for two other believers to come and help him. With their help, he was lifted
from his bed and brought over to the officer, where he was set down on his
bedside. The abbot reached out and laid a comforting hand on his torturer’s
head. ‘You were young and did not know what you were doing. I forgive you and
love you, as do all the other Christians you mistreated. And if sinners who
have been saved by Jesus can love like this, how much more is He himself ready
to erase all the evil you have done, to cleans you fully. Only repent.’
So in
that common cell, others heard the confession of a murderer to one of the men
he had murdered. They embraced at the end of their prayers and gave each other
a holy kiss, as was the custom of Christians in Jesus’ time as well as behind
the Iron Curtain.
They
both died that night and must have entered heaven together. It was Christmas
Eve.”[8]
Zahid, Pakistan, 1986
“‘When
you catch the infidels, beat them! Allah will be please,’ Zahid encouraged
them. The crowd of young men, the youth group of his mosque, waved their sticks
and iron bars and cheered in agreement. Zahid’s arrogance and hatred swelled.
He felt he was doing well as a young Muslim priest. His parents would be proud.
He had rallied a rather large group for this outing and they were nearly ready
to go. Within minutes they would be combing the streets of their village for
Christians to ambush.
Zahid
had a proud heritage in Pakistan. His father and older brother were Muslim
priests. As expected, Zahid had followed in their footsteps. Shortly after he
was assigned to his first mosque, his hatred for Christians began to show
itself as he rallied his followers against them.
To
Zahid, as to many Muslims, Christians are heretics and should be punished. His
government is becoming more influenced by Sharia
law in some provinces. Sharia law
calls for the death of anyone found guilty of blasphemy against the prophet
Mohammed or the Koran. To these Muslims, rejecting Mohammed’s teachings by
becoming a Christian is the highest form of blasphemy.
When
their fervor peaked. Zahid led his group into the streets. It was not long
before they found a group of young Christians to attack. As the mob descended
upon them, the young boys ran, one of them dropping his Bible. One of Zahid’s
group stopped, picked up the Bible, and opened it to rip out the pages. Zahid
had always told his followers to burn all the Bibles they collected, but this
time Zahid felt strangely compelled to keep it and study it in order to expose
its errors to people of his mosque. He quickly snatched the book from the man,
encouraged him to chase the fleeing Christians, and tucked the Bible into his
shirt for later.
Zahid
reported in his own words what became of keeping that Bible:
‘I
was reading the Bible, looking for contradictions I could use against the
Christian faith. All of a sudden, a great light appeared in my room and I heard
a voice call my name. The light was so bright, it lit the entire room.
Then
the voice asked, “Zahid, why do you persecute Me?”
I was
scared. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was dreaming. I asked, “Who are
you?”
I
heard, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
For
the next three nights the light and voice returned. Finally, on the fourth
night, I knelt down and accepted Jesus as my Savor.’
Zahid’s
hatred was suddenly gone. All he wanted to do was share Jesus with everyone he
knew. He went to his family members and those in the mosque and told them what
had happened to him over the last four nights, but they didn’t believe him. His
family and friends turned against him. They called the authorities to have him
arrested so he would leave them alone about this Jesus. According to Islamic
teaching, Zahid was now considered an apostate, a traitor to Islam, a man who
had turned from his faith and accepted stupid lies. Thus, he was a criminal.
Zahid
was locked up in prison for two years. The guards repeatedly beat and tortured
him. One time, they pulled out his fingernails in an attempt to break his
faith. Another time, they tied him to the ceiling fan by his hair and left him
hang there.
‘Although
I suffered greatly at the hands of my Muslim captors, I held no bitterness
towards them. I knew that just a few years before, I had been one of them. I
too had hated Christians.
During
my trial, I was found guilty of blasphemy. According to Sharia law, I was to be executed by hanging. They tried to force me
to recant my faith in Jesus. They assured me that if I cooperated there would
be no more beatings, no more humiliation. I could go free.
But I
could not deny Jesus. Mohammed had never visited me; Jesus had. I knew He was
the truth. I just prayed for the guards, hoping that they would also come to
know Jesus.’
On
the day Zahid was to be hanged, he was unafraid of death as they came to take
him from his cell. Even as they took him to his execution and placed the noose
around his neck, Zahid preached about Jesus to his guards and executioners. He
wanted his last breaths on earth to be used to tell his countrymen that Jesus
was the “the way, the truth, and the life.’ Zahid stood ready to face his
Savior.
Suddenly,
loud voices were heard in the outer room. Guards hurried in to tell Zahid’s
executioners that the court had unexpectedly issued an order to release Zahid,
stating that there was not enough evidence to execute him. To this day, no one
knows why Zahid was suddenly allowed to go free.
Zahid
later changed his name to Lazarus, feeling that he too had been raised from
death. He traveled in the villages around his home testifying of his narrow
escape from death. Many of the Christians did not trust him at first. But soon
they saw his sincerity and received him into their family. They now assist him
as he travels from village to village preaching Jesus as “the way, the truth,
and the life.”
[Zahid writes,] I live in a
land ruled by the false teaching of Islam. My people are blinded, and I was
chosen by God to be His voice. I count all that I have suffered nothing
compared to the endless joy of knowing Jesus, the way, the truth, and the
life.”[9]
Application
For
those of you who have followed this ministry, you know that I rarely, if ever,
ask you for anything. But I want to ask all of you for something now: Pray for
this ministry that its message would continue to spread around the world. Share
the website with your family, with your friends, and with anyone who God places
in your path. Print and copy the weekly lessons and share them freely. Share
the message of the Gospel with everyone you meet. You don’t have to be a pastor
or scholar, you just have to share your personal story of how Jesus transformed
your life. Pray fervently for protection for all those Christians around the
world who risk their lives daily simply because they have put their faith in
Jesus Christ. And finally, pray for persecutors around the world that God moves
in their lives to change their hearts and minds. I hope I have demonstrated
that dropping bombs on our persecutors might change the course of a nation, and
may even be necessary at times for a wide variety of reasons, but it will do
nothing to change the hearts and minds of people bent on evil. And unless the
hearts and minds of people are changed, evil will not be; cannot be defeated.
[1]
Freya Petersen, “Nazis may have killed up to 20 million people more in
concentration camps than previously thought: study,” Global Post, March 4, 2013; available from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/war/130303/nazis-concentration-camps-holocaust-death-toll-Hitlerpreviously.html;
Internet; accessed August 10, 2014.
[2]
Robin Shepherd, “The historical reality of communist oppression is being
ignored. But the truth must not be buried,” TheCommentator,
October 15, 2013, available from http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4230/so_how_many_did_communism_kill.html;
Internet; accessed August 10, 2014.
[3]
Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ,
(Bartlesville, OK: Living Sacrifice Book Co., 1998), pp. 38-39.
[4]
Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults,
(Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1997), pp. 616-617.
[5]
Mike Konrad, “The Greatest Murder Machine In History,” American Thinker, May 31, 2014, available from http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/the_greatest_murder_machine_in_history.html;
Internet; Accessed August 10, 2014.
[6]
ACNS staff, “Anglican Vicar of Baghdad: ‘Child I baptized cut in half by
ISIS,’” Episcopal News Service,
August 8, 2014, available from http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/08/08/anglican-vicar-of-baghdad-child-i-baptized-cut-in-half-by-isis/;
Internet; August 10, 2014.
[7]
dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus
Freaks, Vol. II, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2002), p. 161.
[8]
Ibid., p. 122.
[9]
dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus
Freaks, (Tulsa, OK: Albury Publishing, 1999), pp. 52-55.
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