| Matthew 5:9 |
| "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." |
| 01/04/10 - Church Security: "Wait until Easter" |
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This past holiday season has been one filled with many instances of crime and violence against Christians and the church. We witnessed acts of arson, robbery, and violence, the most tragic being the cold-blooded killing of a Salvation Army worker and Pastor who was shot and killed in front of his three children in an attempted robbery in Arkansas. Since this is the first year that the Christian Security Network is collecting crime data specifically against Christian organizations, we have no way of knowing whether these incidents were an increase, decrease, or the same as previous years. But besides the daily crime, over the last few weeks we have been inundated with the news of the young Nigerian man who attempted to detonate an explosive device contained on his body in a plane preparing to land at Detroit. I have listened to multiple media reports and there is always the practice to be politically correct, not using words like terrorist, Muslim, Islam, etc. And as I have said in the past, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who have no hatred in their hearts against Americans; many live here in the U.S. and call this their home. However, this radical wing of international terrorists is predominately Muslim. It is a sad fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim. We need to call it what it is and the fact that I only heard one former military and intelligence news analyst make note that this was planned on Christmas over American soil is significant and largely glossed over. This was no coincidence that the terrorist waited until the plane was landing at Detroit; he was in fact on the plane for quite some time, starting in Nigeria going to Amsterdam and then to the U.S. If the plan was just to blow up the plane he had hours and hours of opportunity. And it was not an accident that it was Christmas. These types of attacks are planned months and months in advance; it was intended to be completed on Christmas Day, one of our most significant Christian holidays. This former military officer ended his interview with a very chilling message about the failed attempt: "Wait until Easter". No matter how you feel about the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, etc. make no mistake that for the terrorists; they see this as a religious holy war. As we have pointed out in the past, intelligence intercepts as far back as 2005 clearly indicated that Al-Qaeda specifically stated "We have to target Jews and Christians", going on to say they have to bring the war to our soil. If you missed the HBO documentary "Terror in Mumbai" I suggest you try to see if it is for sale or on the Internet and watch it. To see the intro, go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5NgA0Qwx94 This documentary shows what 10 poorly trained, very young, Al-Qaeda terrorists can do with just rifles and grenades in a major city. The Indian intelligence agency was able to monitor cell-phone transmissions between the terrorist leaders in another country and the actual terrorists as they committed the acts of violence (which is common, they are known as "handlers" to keep the terrorist focused and motivated). The ending words of the handlers, after all the carnage and all but one of the ten terrorists were dead, were the most chilling when they stated "This has only been the trailer, wait until they see the movie", meaning this was just a hint of what we are planning. We have stated over and over again, the Christian church needs to begin to make itself a "hard target", not only to stop the many, many crimes we are seeing, but for the day when the church on U.S. soil becomes the target of the terrorist and the church congregation turns to church leaders asking "What are you going to do to protect us?" If we can't stop the drug-addicted burglar, how are we ever going to be ready for the terrorist? This is not fear tactics; this is reality that must be dealt with today. In Christ, Jeff Hawkins Executive Director We welcome your feedback on this article: click here to comment |
