It is 1.46am and the thought of why I am here gripped me like the pang of the labour of a woman about to put to bed as Isaiah 66:7-9 come to mind immediately: "Before she travailed, she brought forth; Before her pain came, she gave birth to a boy. 8"Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons. 9"Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?" says the LORD. "Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?" says your God.…
 |
| A mother in agony |
Isaiah had long prophesied in Isaiah 62: 1-3 thus: "Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory
of the LORD has risen upon you. 2"For behold, darkness will
cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you
And His glory will appear upon you. 3"Nations will come to your light, And kings to the
brightness of your rising.….
He was not explicit on the deep or gross darkness will cover the earth
and the implication which the Psalmist had hinted in Psalm 74:20: Pay
attention to your covenant, for the dark regions of the earth are full of
violence.
Other
words used for 'full of violence' in
other versions include cruelties, violence, wickedness. We don't need any
prophetic telescope to know that this passage is fulfilling very fast globally.
First it was the villages of Africa as we dared the dens darkness where the
church long ignored. Witches and wizards
are busy feasting on lives like vulture feasting on abandoned corpses. The
story of young school girl by name Faith my team and I met in the jungle forest
of Aiona still makes me weep. The innocent girl was coming from school and
mistakenly touched an object referred to as charm. The story of her life
changed for horror! Her hand began to swell and produced pus. The hand was
punctured and pus coming out has already filled a big bucket . The hospital
could not helped matter as they could only recommend amputation. The poor
parent refused that option and the girl was left to go about now with her bone
out, stinking and in agony. Apparently, the object of the charm must be
rejoicing as she watch this little girl die slowly. What a height of
wickedness! We can repeat stories of many of such horrors in many of the
villages we confronts that are left to the Prince of darkness not only in
Africa but all over the world.
Far away
in South America comes the story of a very young medical doctor who just
graduated from the University. He was full of hope and had just got a job. The family were happy rejoicing that
their labour over their son has paid off. Some young boys met him on the street
of Brazil with an Iphone and felt the only way they could rob him of his iphone
was to kill him and so they did! The law freed the boys on the ground that they
were underage. What a horror! |
| Former beauty Queen gunned down |
Spear, who graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2004 with a bachelor of arts in theatre, was also a well-known soap-opera actress. Her father's words: "It is the deepest pain, the deepest pain. It is unbelievable. This is a great loss for us. She was very charismatic, a very good daughter, a very good mother, and she loved Venezuela." Spear's 5-year-old daughter, Maya, survived the attack with a bullet wound in her leg and had to go through surgery.
In an indirect apparent way of encouraging these crimes,
legislative changes have led to partial
decriminalization of possession of Marijuana for personal use in countries like
Brazil. Prison sentences no longer applied and were replaced by educational
measures and community services. Uruguay's
historic decision to legalize the sale and use of marijuana have gingered other
countries that were reconsidering long-held convictions about
keeping the drug illegal.
Chile's
Socialist President Michelle Bachelet is considering relaxing marijuana's
classification as a hard drug (adults can already consume drugs privately in
Chile with no penalties), while Ecuador is debating relaxing penalties for marijuana possession.
The
result of all these is even countries that missions researchers have classified
as Christian nations are today enveloped in gross darkness. The greatest war
however is the global Jihadist movement. The number of lives cut down
prematurely is unquantifiable. They carry out their activities in various
names. Sometimes they bear Fulani Marauders, other times they bear Jamāʻat Ahl as-Sunnah lid-daʻwa wal-Jihād)—better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram (pronounced [bōːkòː hàrâm], "Western education is sinful") -is an Islamic jihadist and takfiri militant and terrorist
organization based in the northeast of Nigeria, north Cameroon and Niger.
Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the organisation seeks to
establish a "pure" Islamic state ruled by sharia law, putting a stop to what it deems
"Westernization". The group is known for attacking
Christians and government targets, bombing churches, attacking schools and
police stations, kidnapping western tourists, but has also assassinated
members of the Islamic establishment that are sympathetic to Christians.
Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated
10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013. The number seems to have multiplied in
2014.
Every morning for a week the news has been
dominated by the South Korean ferry tragedy.
The terrible grief of the parents, the shocking response of the crew to the
unfolding disaster, and the inexorably rising body count. Two days before the
South Korean students boarded their ferry for a study trip to the nearby island
of Jeju, Muslim Jihadists broke into a girls' school
in Chibok, in the remote state of Borno, in north-eastern
Nigeria. They shot guards and abducted about 200 students, who were loaded into
trucks and, it seems, taken off into the forest. Two groups of the girls,
perhaps 30 in all, managed to escape. The rest have simply disappeared.
The latest bombing by the group was in Abuja, on
the same day the girls were abducted, in which at least 70 people died.
Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, was soon on the scene. The first
appearance of the Borno state governor in Chibok came eight days after the
attack. The fate of the Nigerian girls, who had been recalled to class in order
to sit a physics exam, when all the other schools in the area were closed by security fears,
has not been entirely ignored by the world's media. In
my recent article titled: The DARKEST Easter Ever in
Nigeria, I made a passionate outburst for prayers for these girls. The
excerpts:
 |
| Another in deep tears |
I also stayed up late night waiting for the giant America or UK or France to respond by coming to help us rescue the girls with their military might but they only simply condemned the Jihadists. That to me is very disappointing! The Christian Association of Nigeria, should have also come out more strongly but sound very silent except for the two days fast declared. Is there nothing more that can be done?
Also reading through the pages of newspapers, I weep for Nigeria as the response to the happening portray how heartless and reckless the politicians who plans to rule us are. I expect that first as fathers, they should shield politics and be sympathetic but that is not to be...If these folks come to power, what we see now might be a child's play compare to what is to come. I really weep for Nigeria. Oh Lord arise and show us mercy!
Even the Muslim Governor admitted in his Easter message that he had witnessed very dark days of insurgency inherited by his administration, none of the attacks have been more troubling for him as much as the last one week that young girls from his state were abducted by suspected Boko Haram gunmen and confined to a forest.
Shettima said:”I have seen very serious moments since I became the Governor of Borno State in 2011 at a period of insurgent crisis. I have seen many innocent lives lost for no reason and I mourn every life lost with empathy and high sense of responsibility. But the last one week have been my worst days as a governor and even the worst in my life. I am troubled as a father, as a leader and as a politician.
“First, as a father, any time my young daughter comes around me in the last one week at the Government House,my heart beats very fast,my heart becomes so heavy and I develop serious headache because when I look into the eyes of my young daughter,I wonder how the parents of these our students feel when faced with the harsh reality that their loving daughters are either in the hands of abductors in fear and desperation for freedom or wondering somewhere looking for safety while parents do not know the status of their children.
“But as a father to a girl child, I know exactly what is currently troubling the minds of parents and relations who are yet to see their children,I am deeply pained and I very much share the agonies of parents. More than everyone,as the leader, on whose area of governance, this unfortunate incident took place, I am very anxious to have our daughters freed because I know very well that the most important obligation of any government be it at the federal, state or local levels is to ensure the safety and welfare of its good citizens. Every good citizen deserves safety as a fundamental human need and right under a democratic system of governance. As a leader and politician, I am also troubled that I have not had the important opportunity to meet the anguished parents of these girls in Chibok because I have,on a number of instances, been advised to hold back the trip in order not to interrupt security operations as well as search and rescue efforts which are our topmost priority,especially now. I am very much aware that Chibok is one of our communities with high population of our Christian parents,brothers and sisters. It is therefore, easy for unpatriotic and divisive elements to make issues out of the delayed visit for whatever motive that will be unhelpful.''
 |
| Family of abducted girls |
Oh Church ARISE! We need to go to God together and cry for the healing of our nation. We need to pray for the urgent rescue of these innocent girls. We need to pray for the few remnant in the far North of Nigeria who have no other place to go and are being consistently wiped out. Nigeria is our country. Running away makes us refugees in other man's land. Let us collectively cry to God. If a tree be cut down, it can live again. He can still heal our land. Arise oh Compatriot! I cry for my fatherland. The wall of security is broken down, the gate is burnt off ~ worse than the days of Nehemiah. Oh Lord Arise!
 |
| Syrian Christians |
Another silent cruelty going on is that Christians in the military are being wiped out due to alleged collaboration between the Jihadists and the Muslim soldiers. The pain of a Christian army Colonel killed in the North East of Nigeria few weeks ago still lingers in my mind. Again, my team and I were in the village of Ankpa-Owukpa, Benue State preaching to his people when the news of his death came. He was the only child of his mother. The old woman wept profusely and uncontrollably.
Reading the newspapers in Nigeria makes one weep and the agony intensifies by the day. Even when scores and sometimes hundreds of Christless Muslims were killed like the ones in Zamfara and Borno States in the Mosque, it gives no Christian any joy as it only swells hell.
In Central African Republic, it was widely reported that the Chadian armies who were supposedly there to keep peace joined forces with the Jihadists and wiped out many Christian at a time!
The Turkish military is actively assisting foreign-backed Sunni Islamic militants who are routing Christian Armenians from the northwestern Syrian town of Kassab, Syrian and Lebanese sources told WND, an online newspaper. The Armenians are being forced to seek refuge in the Syrian city of Latakia.
While there have been numerous reports of Islamic militant groups such as the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIS attacking Syrian Christians, the attack on Armenian Christians in Syria by Turkey has brought back memories of the Ottoman Turk attacks on Christian Armenians. The Turkish attacks beginning in 1915 and lasting until 1923 killed more 1.5 million people and has been regarded by many experts as genocide.
As a result, many hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled to neighboring Syria and Lebanon to seek refuge and reestablish Armenian communities. In addition to some 120,000 Armenian Christians, the government of embattled Shiite-Alawite President Bashar al-Assad has been protecting Christian Syriacs, Marionites and Eastern Orthodox believers.
Beginning last March 21, Sunni rebels have expelled some 5,000 Armenian Christians from their historic town, violently attacking the residents and desecrating their churches. Sources say the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists then occupied the town’s abandoned homes and businesses. The Armenian refugees fled some 35 miles, mostly on foot, to Latakia, a Syrian Army stronghold. There also is a sizeable Christian population in Latakia. The Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied any involvement in aiding al-Nusra militants, even though Erdogan, who also is Sunni, has allowed the Syrian opposition and al-Nusra militants to use his country as a base from which to launch military operations, hold meetings and store supplies.
Sources told WND that Turkish military personnel manning the border between Turkey and Syria allowed the foreign Islamic militants to pass without interference. The stunning story of three Christians martyred by Muslims in Turkey, and what one widow said after she lost her husband, in “Malatya.” The sources also report that al-Nusra fighters have taken control of the Kassab border crossing into Turkey.
According to Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi, the Turkish government is facilitating the infiltration of foreign militants into Kassab. He said such assistance violates international resolutions, since it constitutes involvement in terrorism. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian also expressed concern about the fate of the Christian Armenians in Kassab. “About 120,000 ethnic Armenians live in Syria – in Kassab and other areas,” he said. “Military actions and the humanitarian situation have forced ethnic Armenians to leave the city.” Lebanese sources told WND that given the Sunni attacks on the Christian Armenians in Syria, it is possible that the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah will intervene to protect them and get back Kassab.
Pointing to the threat from al-Nusra, whose members increasingly are descending on Lebanon, sources say that the Armenian Christians have asked Hezbollah for protection in the country. The Armenian Christians are a relatively small minority group in Lebanon but have sided with most of the other Lebanese Christians to seek Hezbollah’s protection.
In addition, Lebanese sources say that the Armenians in Lebanon are training a small militia which they have organized to protect against attacks from the Sunni al-Nusra group. In 2000, the Lebanese parliament voted to recognize the turn-of-the-century Turkish killing of Armenians as genocide. It is the only Arab country and one of the few countries in the world that has done so.
The
pain of seeing innocent children, helpless women and aged men slaughtered like
chickens and sometimes pregnant women sliced so their unborn babies can be
brought out as torn into pieces is no doubt excruciating. The natural response
is to hate, mobilise and fight back.
Why these atrocities, wickedness, callousness,
violence and cruelties? Could they be killing for a cause? What on earth can stop all these?
A look at
history generates some concern. It looks like anytime, the Church did
not reach out with the Gospel to the nations, they come killing the Church. It
is no coincidence that those waging war against the church today are mainly
unreached people. The Kanuris, Hausas, Fulanis
& Arabs for example with a population of over 5million people has less than
1% Christians each. Niger Republic from
where they find easy recruits have less than 1% Christian also. As far as
eternity is concern, there is gross darkness over these people. The cruelties
they remain subjected to as a result of these darkness over the centuries are
sufficient cause to strike at the church.
The
church must continue to pray. We have God's word on our side that if we ask of
the Lord the heathen, He will surrender it to us for an inheritance. If we
don't, we dare not ask: why do the heathen rage? The Message Bible (Psalm
2:8) simplify it thus:
Let me tell you what God said next.
He said, “You’re my son,
And today is your birthday.
What do you want? Name it:
Nations as a present? continents as a prize?
You can command them all to dance for you,
Or throw them out with tomorrow’s trash.”
He said, “You’re my son,
And today is your birthday.
What do you want? Name it:
Nations as a present? continents as a prize?
You can command them all to dance for you,
Or throw them out with tomorrow’s trash.”
How often we
misdirect our prayers, seeking for mundane things when the heathen awaits our
inheritance. John Knox prayed: Give me Scotland or I die. God gave Him
Scotland. Can we begin to focus on the nations.
The cry of the
nations (Jeremiah 8:20): "The harvest is past, the
summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Their situation is desperate.
The second recommendation is to
go beyond praying to loving them and reaching them with the light of the
gospel. This is not time to hate them. It is no doubt difficult and absolutely
unnatural to love the unlovable but Christ taught us to do so. Romans 5:8 says But God commanded his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus taugh
in Matthew 4:43-44: "You have heard that it was
said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' "But I say to you, love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you''.
 |
| The Jihadists |
The first century Christians
faced terrible persecution both from the state and the religious orders but
Roman eventually became Christianized. The greatest love we can show to these people
is to take the gospel of Christ to them. Only the light can dispel darkness. If
they are born again, they become our brothers and sisters. It will be difficult
for them to contemplate killing us. The
few of them that are already saved are relating well. Reaching them must be
conscious effort. it will require praying for the God of harvest to raise
labourers that will focus on them. It will require the church deploying
financial resources to those endangering their lives to reach them.
Finally,
all these must be handled with every sense of urgency. Doors are shutting up
very fast on many nations. There is certainly no doubt that it is more
difficult to access closed doors than doors that are wide open even though both
have adversaries assigned to resist the gospel. Remember Apostle Paul's words:
For a great door and effectual is opened unto
me, and there are many adversaries.
(1 Corinthian 16:9). Once upon a time, it was easy for Christian from the West
Africa sub-region to enter Mauritania because they were part of the regional
group, ECOWAS but with their withdrawal, that door is closed up now. It is
easier for the camel's head to enter into the eye of a needle than to access
that nation now. Most of the war-torn terrorist tribal groups have become
incredibly dangerous to access.
 |
| Only concern about enforcing gay right in Nigeria |
Besides,
all the happening are not far from the signs of the end times and His soon
return. When the trumpet sounds, the work of missions for those that will be
rapture will be over for eternity. Whatever we don't do for the Lord to rescue
these nations cannot be done again. May the thought that we are pilgrims in
this world encourage our heart. May His promise to build His church which the
gate of hell cannot prevail against spur us to do more for Him knowing that we
are on the winning side! Maranatha!
They
killed for a cause and only the church, not politicians or world power can
avert the cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment