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.