A GENTLED HEART

We are offered a new solution for the brutality in the Middle East - a job.

Even though we have a shortage of jobs here, the plan is to help ISIS find jobs?

We are being told that poverty and lack of education are the reasons for a brute's heart.  Is that right?  What gentles a heart?

Consider these men:

This man is from a wealthy Nigerian family; his banker father is said to be one of the richest in Africa.  The man grew up in an affluent neighborhood and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering.  Later he went to Yemen for more education and became increasingly more "pious",  going to the mosque for dawn prayers and spending hours in his room reading the Quaran.

We know this radical Islamic terrorist to be the underwear bomber, trained by AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), and now jailed.

This man was born in Virginia to Palestinian immigrants from the West Bank, educated at Virginia Tech, and received a medical degree in psychiatry from Walter Reed Medical Center.  In his job counseling soldiers, he carried an inscription on his calling card "soldier of Allah".

We know this radical Islamic terrorist to be the Ft. Hood shooter who killed 13 and wounded 30 others and now is jailed.

This man was born in Memphis to a family of four who were Baptists.  His father was a businessman who ran Blues City Tours.  He graduated from high school and went to TN State University for several semesters before converting to Islam in 2004 in a Memphis mosque.  He stated "I've loved jihad ever since I became a Muslim".  By 2007 he was a deeply religious Muslim who legally changed his name and adopted legalistic practices according to the salafi tradition.  Salafis return to practices that the prophet Mohammed was said to employ...such as growing a beard, rolling up pants legs above the ankle, and chewing a "miswak" (stick for cleaning one's teeth).

We know this radical Islamic terrorist to be Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (aka Carlos Bledsoe), the man who killed one and wounded another outside the Little Rock military recruiting office, and is now jailed.

This man was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents (his father was in the States as a Fulbright scholar to do graduate work at universities).  He spent 11 years in Yemen and returned to the U.S. for college, graduating in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University.  He was proven to have contact with many terrorists and terrorist plots (including  9/11, the underwear bomber, the Ft. Hood shooter, the Times Square bomber, and the American convert, John Walker Lynd).  In a video posted to the internet, he called for Muslims around the world to kill Americans without hesitation and overthrow Arab leaders.

We know this radical Islamic terrorist to be Anwar al-Awlaki and he was killed by a drone in 2011.

As these men's lives reveal, the problem with extremism is neither poverty nor education.  In a New York Times ARTICLE about the "madrassah myth", the backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind major attacks against Westerners was studied.  They found that 53% of the terrorists had attended college or received a college degree.  Since only 52% of Americans have been to college, terrorists seem as well-educated as we are.

And poverty?  Could we agree that there are poor people all over the world who do not cut off heads?  Please remember that Osama bin Laden was born into a BILLIONAIRE'S family.

So if the problem is not poverty or education...what is the problem?  The problem is ideology.  You do what you do because you believe what you believe.  And the patience of God is granting a piece of time for all peoples to make up their minds about which "founder" to follow.

The ISIS power surge is nothing new.  Across the timeline, Islam has followed their founder's command for conquest.  They also follow their founder in the belief that half their population (women) can be held in subjugation, and that forgiveness is absent but justice is swift.

A Muslim's faith rests on their own shoulders.  A good Muslim DECLARES (the Shahada "there is no god except God and Muhammad is God's Messenger"), PRAYS (a ritual prayer 5x a day), GIVES (to the poor), FASTS (during Ramadan), and MAKES A PILGRIMAGE (to Mecca at least once in a lifetime).  Their connection to God is based on what they do and "doing" gets heavy.

On the other hand, Jesus said HE DID IT ALL.  The Book says there's nothing good in us that we would choose Him...and none are righteous, not one.  He CAME, He IDENTIFIED with all our frailties, He SUFFERED and DIED so that His blood would cover our sin and purchase accessibility to God, and then He ROSE from the grave to prove His claims.  Has Muhammed proven any of his claims?  Jesus did not kill anyone to make followers.  Can Islam say that?

Our brutal day makes the gospel shine.  While every heart on this planet needs to be gentled, we should be very careful about which "founder" we follow. Jesus said "Come to Me, all who are heavy-laden and I will give rest" and  "Come, follow Me!"

BEASTS

What does the LifeGiver think as He looks down on the lifetakers in the Middle East and Africa?

The rising number of ISIS, Boko Haram, AQAP, Al Shabaab, Al Nusra, and Ansar al Sharia have one thing in common: they are radical Islamists who have global domination on their mind.

Have we forgotten the times when evil rises in history and has had to be put away?  Evil is now rolling in like a flood.

Who could have imagined that modern times would see a return to slavery and the sword?

We read of atrocities that leave us slack-jawed because it seems each day's news is worse than the last.  It's hard not to become numb.

Setting aside for a moment what adults do to adults, how many little boys have been coached to be beasts?  How many second-grade girls have been sold into sexual slavery to men?

Jesus said it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their necks and be thrown into the sea than to cause one of His little ones to sin.

Judgment Day will be full of surprises for men who set destruction, conjugal heaven, and abject selfishness higher than a loving God.

We shiver to think of what hell will be like, as populated by such wretched men.

Depravity is hard to think on, and it is exhausting to watch pinprick bombing fail to hold back the eradication of a people group 2,000 years old.  Christians and Jews have been in the Middle East since before Islam was invented.

So what is a Christian's role in all this?  What is America's role?

Christians are told to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.  Do you find it hard to pray for the salvation of these savages?  Then you are feeling exactly what Jonah felt many years ago.

What about our country's role?

Yesterday at his terrorism summit, the President spoke of "grievances". It would seem that if anyone had a grievance, it would be the people who refused to submit to Islam and have been raped, beheaded, tortured, burned, crucified, or cut in half.

But in a bizarre twist, the President spoke of the grievances that MUSLIMS suffer, as though Muslims were victims of hard luck and prejudice...and all they need is some applause, community organizing, and a job to bring them to civilization.

What can we say to that stunning worldview?

With so much suffering and destruction, it is helpful to fall back on our ReferenceBook and remember wise words.

Speaking of how lawless deeds torment the righteous soul, Peter says God reserves the unrighteous (those who indulge their fleshly desires and despise authority) for punishment at the day of judgment.  Here's how The Message translates 2 Peter 2:12...

"THESE PEOPLE ARE NOTHING BUT BRUTE BEASTS, BORN IN THE WILD, PREDATORS ON THE PROWL.  IN THE VERY ACT OF BRINGING DOWN OTHERS WITH THEIR IGNORANT BLASPHEMIES, THEY THEMSELVES WILL BE BROUGHT DOWN, LOSERS IN THE END."  

God will judge those on this bloody path, but sometimes He uses our hands and feet to help the helpless.  Just as they write their judgment, we also write ours.

The day of judgment cannot come too soon for these killers as they WILL undergo the same destruction which they designed for others.  It may come sooner (to save lives) or it may come later,  when they look full into Jesus' face and their final accountability.

LORD, have mercy on the Levant.