(Audio version; Music: "Open Heaven" and "Even When It Hurts" by: Hillsong United)
Introduction
My
heart was broken this week by the acts of terrorism suffered by Parisians at
the hands, once again, of Islamic terrorists, the most insidious evil of our
day. I know that the tragedies have hit close to home for many around the world
and I guess I’m no different as I have many regular readers of my weekly
lessons in France. For my readers in France who were impacted directly or
indirectly by the recent terror attacks in your country, please know that I
have and continue to pray that God would grant you peace and comfort during
these difficult and frightening days. It can be difficult to know how we should
respond to such barbaric evil. On a visceral level, our immediate desire is to
lash out at the evil with every fiber of our being. Although that may feel good
and even be somewhat effective at a micro level, it will have little if any
affect at a macro level to restrain the crashing waves of a pervasive evil like
Islam.
All times in
history have witnessed 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 did not
exist in a vacuum. 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 rainbows,
butterflies and unicorns. But I live in the real world where evil continues to
wage war against all that is good 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 hands 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 to by the foolish among us as a “Religion of
Peace.” Really? Let’s take a look shall we? Islam was birthed by Mohammed (born
570 A. D.; died 632 A. D.) who claimed the Koran was revealed to him in the
early 7th century A. D. 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? 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 once received
reports from the Middle East of the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas in
Palestine firing thousands of 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 “ISIS” (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria)
sweeping across 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 that Christians are being slaughtered in
some cases by crucifixion. The brutality reached new lows when it was reported
that children of Christians were being buried alive or beheaded in front of
their parents. 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]
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 current 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 to protect their unbelief or wrong-belief. 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.
Subject
Text
Acts 9:1-20
1Meanwhile, Saul was still
breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the
high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues in
Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or
women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3As he neared
Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He
fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you
persecute me?” 5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.” I am Jesus, whom
you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city,
and you will be told what you must do.” 7The men traveling with Saul
stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8Saul
got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So
they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9For three days he was blind,
and did not eat or drink anything. 10In Damascus there was a
disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes,
Lord,” he answered. 11The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas
on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.
12In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his
hands on him to restore his sight.” 13“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I
have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your
saints in Jerusalem. 14And he has come here with authority from the
chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” 15But the Lord
said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before
the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16I
will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” 17Then Ananias
went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on
Saul, he said,
“Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were
coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy
Spirit.” 18Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes,
and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19and after
taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the
disciples in Damascus. 20At once he began to preach in the
synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
Context
Paul
(Saul) is such a great illustration of the power of Jesus to transform even the
most devout ideologue. Chapter 7 of the Book of Acts (“Acts” is short for “Acts
of the Apostles”), we have a record of the first martyred Christian, Stephen.
When Stephen is brought before the religious leaders, he does a masterful job
or communicating the Gospel message from the time of Abraham to the time of
Jesus’ advent. Nevertheless, the religious leaders were purposely ignorant and
unwilling to listen to Stephen’s witness. Instead, they had him forcibly
removed from the trial proceedings and had him stoned to death. And who was
right there cheering on the murderous crowd? That’s right, it was Saul. A
zealous Saul stood by holding the cloaks of those who participated in the
stoning—how thoughtful of young Saul. But the blood of Stephen didn’t satisfy
Saul. Saul saw himself as one who would uphold and perpetuate the purity of
Judaism even if it meant murdering everyone he believed was a threat to that
purity. Saul made it his personal mission to defend God’s honor from all those
who might pervert his idea of God by perpetuating the message of Jesus Christ.
Consequently, Saul launched a campaign of persecution against the Church in
Jerusalem where he went door to door in search of Christians who he then
imprisoned. Thereafter, he sought and received permission from the religious leaders
to travel to Damascus to confront and hopefully destroy the young Christian
community there. However, God had another plan for Saul on the road to
Damascus.
Text Analysis
Paul
was a missionary even when he was still Saul. He was just a different kind of
missionary according to our Subject Text.
Saul was on a mission of destruction. “Saul’s blood is boiling. He’s on a
murderous rampage toward Damascus. He charged north out of Jerusalem with the
fury of Alexander the Great sweeping across Persia, and the determined resolve
of [the American Civil War General] William Tecumseh Sherman in his scorching
march across Georgia. Saul was borderline out of control. His fury had
intensified almost to the point of no return. Such bloodthirsty determination
and blind hatred for the followers of Christ, drove him hard toward his distant
destination: Damascus. If you were a follower of Jesus living anywhere near
Jerusalem, you wouldn’t want to hear Saul’s knock at your door…Saul had
determined to go to the farthest extreme in his mission to apprehend the
followers of the Way. Over one hundred miles north of Jerusalem, the journey to
Damascus was no small undertaking. To Saul the trip would pay off in spades…
[Saul]
knew many Jewish turncoats had fled Israel’s capital to seek refuge in far-away
Damascus. He devised an aggressive plan to storm the city, capture the
infidels, and drag them into court. Thankfully, God had a different
plan…‘Suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the
ground’…You can almost hear the screeching of the brakes. At that moment,
Saul’s murderous journey was brought to a divine halt.
Suddenly.
Isn’t that just like the Lord? No announcement ahead of time. No heavenly
calligraphy scrolled across the skies with the warning, ‘Watch out tomorrow,
Saul, God’s gonna getcha.’ God remained silent and restrained as Saul proceeded
with his murderous plan to invade Damascus. Surely, he discussed the details
with his companions. God didn’t interrupt…until. At the hour it would have its
greatest impact, God stepped in. Without warning, the course of Saul’s life
changed dramatically…For more than three decades Saul controlled his own life.
His record in Judaism ranked second to none. On his way to make an even greater
name for himself, the laser of God’s presence stopped him in his tracks,
striking him blind…For the first time in his proud, self-sustained life, Saul
found himself a desperate dependent…Saul was convinced he had been persecuting
people—cultic followers of a false Messiah. Instead, he discovered that the
true object of his vile brutality was Christ Himself.”[7]
The
parallels between the actions and attitudes of Saul and the barbarism of Islam
can hardly be ignored. However, Saul’s actions and attitudes were not changed
by lethal opposition. Even though his death may have stopped him, it clearly
would have done nothing to stop all the “Sauls” that came after him. Instead,
Saul’s reign ended by The Most Powerful Weapon In
The War Against Evil—the Gospel message of Jesus Christ delivered to him personally
by Jesus Himself. And this same weapon is the only weapon with the power to
defeat the pervasive evil of Islam we face today.
The Most
Powerful Weapon In The War Against 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. From my limited
perspective, I used to understand 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
like it transformed the evil in Paul. Let me also share the story of Zahid with
you as further evidence that the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is The Most Powerful Weapon In The War Against
Evil.
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 looking
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 in 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
hanging 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.”[8]
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 with
me for those who were devastated by the evil attacks on France by Islamic
terrorists. Pray especially for any of our brothers and sisters in France who
may have been affected by the attacks. Pray also for all those around the world
who lie in the path of Islam’s evil advance. And if you are willing, please 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 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; how the Gospel message defeated the evil of sin in your life. And
finally, pray for persecutors around the world that God moves in their lives to
change their hearts and minds. I have no doubt 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. It is only through
the preaching of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ that evil will be defeated
for it is The Most Powerful Weapon In
The War Against Evil.
[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] Charles
R. Swindoll, Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit,
(Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2002), pp. 22-24.
[8] dc Talk
and The Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus
Freaks, (Tulsa, OK: Albury Publishing, 1999), pp. 52-55.
No comments:
Post a Comment