It is so disheartening to see minimal media coverage of the slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt this weekend as they attended church on Palm Sunday. In one terrifying moment one of two ISIS suicide bombers detonated a bomb that killed nearly 50 Christians. One observer said, “They came to pray and they died.” Many were dismembered and blown to pieces. If 50 people would have died to terrorists in France or somewhere in the US it would have dominated news cycles for weeks, but the loss of persecuted Christians is a non-story.
Yesterday we went to see The Case for Christ which is a spectacular movie about a best-selling author and investigative reporter Lee Strobel, who was an atheist. It centers around his quest to prove that God was a myth. When his wife became a follower of Jesus, he didn’t like it at all, and was determined to prove her wrong. He went to great extremes and in fact traveled all over the country meeting with various experts in an all-out effort to thoroughly investigate all the evidence and prove God did not exist. In particular, he was determined to prove once and for all that the resurrection of Christ was a hoax. Though he gave it everything he had, the evidence proved just the opposite and in the end, he became convinced that Jesus Christ was exactly who He said He was, and then accepted Him as His Savior.
I highly recommend that you see it and bring your doubting friends.
We parked in a garage next to the theater and walked through a courtyard to get there. A sports bar is located adjacent to it and numerous people were sitting at tables outside loudly talking and obviously well on their way to getting drunk. A couple of hours later as I departed the movie with tears still in my eyes from watching it, I passed the same folks sitting at the bar that I saw hours earlier, only now there were more and several appeared to have achieved their goal of getting drunk.
I was thinking about the price that Christ paid to redeem us of our sins. The movie detailed the pain and suffering He went through as He died on that cross. Then my thoughts turned to those Copts who horrifically had lost their lives in Egypt as they prayed and worshipped commemorating the day Jesus entered Jerusalem to die for our sins. As I glanced at those drinking away on Palm Sunday afternoon I could not help but feel anger.
Then I thought about Jesus. One question that haunted Lee Strobel was if Jesus was indeed God, why would He deliberately go through the torture of being crucified when He could easily have summoned up angelic forces to defeat His tormentors.
The person to whom Strobel asked this question had a one word response: “Love.”
Hmmm . . . Jesus loved us so much that He willingly took our punishment. His love is unconditional. I’m no longer angry at the drunks of Palm Sunday, I only feel compassion and the love of Christ for them. Remember John 3:16? 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. Whoever is not conditional; His is an unconditional love. As for those suicide bombers that killed those beautiful worshippers, it’s too late for them. They lost their chance and now will have to endure the punishment for their sins themselves and suffer and burn in hell forever.
We have a choice and we have hope in Jesus Christ. Pray for the families of those martyred Saints. Pray for those who were getting drunk without a thought in the world about meeting their God one day. Pray for the godless media and specifically that they will come to know Christ. Pray for those brainwashed into ISIS that they will come to know Jesus and repent of their sins. Pray for this world. Pray for all lost sinners and most of all do as Jesus did: LOVE!
Romans 5:8
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
April 10 2017 – Click here to listen