ISLAMIC TERROR; WHAT SHALL WE CONSIDER?

Who can think at the pace of God?  As mere men we are, at the most, clumsy in just trying to dissect the Word of God that we give forth hope and courage.  Upon any matter of concern, how are we to gauge our possibilities as well as our responsibilities? This is a sobering consideration because God seldom does anything routinely.

The Islamic terror cells are for real.  They named themselves; not the media.  And aggression, wild aggression, seems to be their tune.  So are we to do anything?  Can we do anything?  Who would know what or how other than the Controller of the entire stage called life?

There a few things that I believe we don't do.

1. We don't pretend steep threat does not exist.  
2. We don't "eye for eye" it.
3. We don't hide.

Should Christians be taking some sort of effective action?  I think so.  What should it be and how should it look?  I have an idea for one direction.  Would it be of God?  Possibly. So here goes.

What I think we should first do is lift our heads from any sands of denial and admit that these extremists have announced that they are coming for us.  That seems to be fact; not rumor.

Too, we can already note that their hostility is progressing in rapid-fire.  A beheading here, three there, burning of one in a cage, and then 21 throats cut.  It seems there is escalation that calls for alarm.

Next we should discuss among ourselves how we will be benefited by hostile action should it arise.  Here's one thing I believe of importance.  God knows how to deal with opposing forces.  He's good at it.

Well, first, He died for all enemies which includes us.  So we know His heart is in it. Next, we know that when opponents believe they are restricting God's children, He has this great knack of entering from an unannounced door to be nothing more than advantaged.

When the church came into existence in Acts 2, it was due to a great eruption of faith backed by Holy Spirit leadership. Some of the religious zealots were finding Jesus' new way to cramp their traditional style.  Peter and John were jailed.  Great threat was issued that this new nonsense stop or else.

By Acts 5 there was such outrage against the new believers that a respected Pharisee, Gamaliel, pleaded that they refrain from killing these renegades (?) for God would deal with them if they were not really of His system.  By Acts 7 trouble was still stirring and young Stephen was executed.  Yes, this was going on at the very beginning of the church Jesus was building.

Acts 8 is where God lets it get interesting...and hopeful.  He used the wickedness of the extremists to expand the preaching of His Word.  And Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.  And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.  And some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentations over him.  But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison (vv 1-3).

Believers were being persecuted by another kind of believers.  With interest we can note that God used this negative circumstance to expand His work.  He used the enemy methods to force the church into new territories...where they would evangelize in the name of Jesus.

So verse :4 gives such interesting perspective; Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the Word.  The later scene of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch would not be there if the religious extremists hadn't persecuted the church in Jerusalem forcing scatter.

I mean God is so on to outreach that in Acts 10 this angry Saul of Tarsus was himself baptized into Jesus, becoming a promoter of the very one he had battled against.  He will forever be known, by the way, as the apostle Paul; the man who wrote more books than any other New Testament writer.

God has vision!  He knows possibilities!  He can handle this!

That may be an area we find free to imagine.  If and as persecution of the Christians escalates, I believe we can count on an awakening that we churches desperately need which will cause more to become believers had the future persecution not have happened.

If attack occurs, grief and tears will be obvious.  Be assured God will use such a time as opportunity to reach more nations just as He did when it happened in Acts 8.  We may be pressed and bewildered; but God has tremendous ways of converting even those who press hardest against His church.

Be encouraged.  God is not done being creative in His reach.  May we find joy in all things.