Would You Give Up Your Life For Your Beliefs?

Last week I was in an institute class and we were talking about how the last days would get to the point where people would be begging for Jesus to come again.  I thought then about the Middle East and how they are without a doubt already begging and pleading for him to come and for all of this to end.

I watched something that changed me today.  ISIS has put a video out there of them killing numerous Christians.  This video is almost a half hour long.  This video has been edited and published for all to see.  Have any of you watched it?  They want you to see it.  They don't care about what they are doing.  They are trying to bring on Armageddon because that is what they believe their purpose is.  I will admit I watched about 1 second of this graphic horrific video.  That was all I needed to see.  It made me stop in my tracks.  It changed me.  These people all are being slaughtered because they believe in Jesus Christ.  These men love their Savior so much that they are willing to be marched to their torturous death because they love Him so much.  They are not denying their God when they know their life is about to end.

We all have said we would die for certain things.  Would we really?  Do you dare to even watch a second of the awful, evil people...monsters these creatures are?  This is the same thing Hitler did.  Americans sat back and did nothing or turned a blind eye then.  We are doing the same thing!  Stalin starved his own people to death and we did nothing.  I know these men have wives and children who are screaming to their Lord to come and save them from this horror.  Do all of us in the whole world have to feel this pain and beg for Him to return for it to happen?  He will come as a thief in the night. Is anyone in America ready?  Is anyone paying attention?  Does it matter?

Do we need to wait for this to happen on our own soil to care?  Then again what can we do?  We are a half a world away.  What could non-Europeans have done during the holocaust?  I guess what we can do is be aware of it and be willing to hide people if they need to be hidden.  We need to pray for them and pray to help us to know what to do and how to help.  We need to let the world know what is happening so no one is blind-sighted by what may very well come to our own soils.  We need to know who we stand with and what we stand for before it all comes to a climax.

What would we do if our feet were put to the fire ourselves?  What if our children were going to be taken from us because we wouldn't deny our God.  We need to be prepared both spiritually and temporally so we know what we will do if it comes to that.  Put yourself in the shoes of the Coptic Christians in the Middle East and feel what you think it would feel like.  We need to have compassion for these people and pray that this will stop.  God wins in the end, we know that but we also know there will be suffering before he wins.  How are you going to react?  Whose side are you on?

Will you dare to prepare for the times ahead?  Heavenly Father will let you know in your personal lives what you can do to help, what you can do to be ready for whatever may come.  Ask Him.