A May 19 story this year in London’s Daily Telegraph, reported that ISIS Jihadi fighters arrived at a home in Mosel, Iraq, and told the woman she had two choices. "Either you leave your home now or you must pay the Jaziya." (Jaziya is a tax imposed on non-Muslims in ISIS controlled territories and is calculated according to their estimated worth.)
The woman told the Jihadis she would pay and asked for a few moments to get the money and also her child. Instead, the Jihadis lit the house on fire with both mother and daughter inside. The mother managed to pull her 12 year-old daughter from the burning house, but the girl died from burns a few hours later. Incredibly, the girl with her dying breath said to her mother, “Forgive them, Mommy.”
How could it be possible for a girl to ask her mother such a thing? Because the girl and her mother were Christians. They knew what Jesus said about loving their enemies, and they were living their faith in Him.
Jesus urged His disciples in Matthew 5:43-44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” But plainly, is not Jesus asking the impossible from us? How would this sweet, dying girl want her killers forgiven?
More to the point, how can we forgive our enemies? Only by loving them. Love is the only answer to the world’s wickedness and bloodshed. And prayer is the only way to learn that love. We must pray, pray and pray some more.
Sin and rebellion against Almighty God have taken over the very soul of mankind, and unless Christians pray desperately for help to love and forgive the enemy, their evil will triumph and they will overtake us all. From the cross Jesus prayed for us all, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
A leading Baghdad cleric, Father Martin Dawood, said the country’s ancient Christian population could disappear within five years due to ISIS. He said he used to advise members of his congregation to remain rather than flee their country, but now he urges them to leave.
Chaldean Catholics, Syrian Orthodox and Eastern Assyrian Christians numbered 1.3 million people 20 years ago, but are only 400,000 today. Father Dawood said: “We know not every Muslim here is a terrorist, but there is a culture rising, not only here in Iraq, but in the whole world, and we will be burned in this fire in the future.”
So Christians there pray, and they teach their people to forgive. And so should we. Yes, we should pray fervently for our nation and its future, but our best prayers are to love our enemies and to ask God to turn their hearts from hatred to love Him, and us.
My friend, Rev. Cliff Haberstock, wrote, "ISIS cannot stamp out Jesus. Without Him they can only live in fear and hatred." Let us pray for them to find Jesus, and for God to change their hearts. Let us also pray for our soldiers who stand in the gap between us and the enemy.
“Lord, teach us to love and forgive our enemies, at home and abroad. Amen”
Rev. Bob Tasler
www.bobtasler.com
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