ISIS / ISIL

I was at a local store and the clerk had a heavy accent.  "What is your accent?"

"I am from Bosnia."

My heart skipped a beat.  I tried to keep the conversation going.  "When did you move here?"

"I only came to find someone, but it has been a long time and I can not find him."

I let the conversation die, no I was not going to ask the next question, I feared the answer.  For I was suddenly reminded in an odd way of the problem Bosnia and I have, which I believe is on the Little Apple Blog.  I tend to forget that incident in my life, when the NATO refused to hold those responsible for the murder of my cousin Bernard, much less the over 1,000 executed with him.  Wrong place, wrong time, medics not excepted.  And I devised a devious justice to make them pay, and they did.  By the end of that summer, no army had a working sniper left.  And I slept well, knowing that murderers would be held for judgement by God.  Like my ancestor Fredrick, I do not believe that all Muslims are bad, just the ones whom would murder their neighbors ....  Yet, I live knowing for decades now that I bear a price on my head in Muslim held lands.

And with the rise of ISIS/ISIL, I have watched carefully the murderous swath they have cut through the Middle East and in random attacks even here in America and Canada.  I have thought on this and the resolution is not a pretty one, for innocents would die - because the enemy can not be readily identified until they attack.

There have been numerous and sometimes contradictory stories and images of the anti-Christian slaughter on going in Iraq and Syria. They cannot all be confirmed. But, there is a pattern emerging - no one is immune from the barbaric acts of radical Muslim.  Really just the reappearance of the Turks whom swept out of Egypt in the seventh century.

Do you remember a photo earlier this year of the corpse of a little girl, about ten years old, wearing a dress and leotards. She lies sprawled on the floor with her arms outstretched.  For a presumably poor girl, she looks like she's dressed in her Sunday best.  Everything about her looks normal, except that her head is missing.  This photo makes you sick.  It's right out of a horror movie.  Something within you dies when you look at it.

Internet news media reported this is a Christian girl in Iraq beheaded by ISIS.  Others report a different scenario for her death.  But either way radical Islam killed her.

How do you justify killing a child?  Much less a medic helping your own people?  And more importantly, how could you do so in the name of God?  As of this writing, Christians continue to be killed in Iraq simply because they won't convert to Islam.  It is convert, pay a strict tax, flee, or die.  In some cases, just convert or die continues to be the repeated phrase.

In one sense, this is not new.  Radical Islam has been on the march since 632.  Most of the population of the land they conquered, forced conversions upon or killed were conquered Christians.  By 950, 50% of what had been Christendom was now under Muslim control, and the vast majority has never reverted back.

But today's leaders of Islam are more barbaric.  ISIS refers to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They are intent in re-creating the caliphate in the Middle East.  Their spokesman said they won't stop until they fly the black flag of Islam over the U.S. White House.  (Yah, sure ya betcha ...  Just hold that thought for a while.)

Jesus told us that the day will come when men will kill you and think they are offering a service to God.  They are deceived in thinking that God is pleased with this offering.

The irony is technically Islam teaches that Muslims will one day stand before whom on the Day of Judgment?  Answer: Jesus.  They teach that He will return one day.  But they also teach the first thing He'll do is destroy all the crosses.  They certainly don't believe in an avenging Jesus as Lord.

If radical Muslims think that by killing Christians Allah is somehow pleased, how wrong are they?  Are they not succeeding?  What is there to hold them accountable other than a few bombs hitting vacant buildings in the night?  Yeah, the news hype begs the question: "whom is telling ISIS the targets in advance?".  It is not by mistake ISIS captures weapons dropped to groups friendly with the west.  Someone is feeding them information out of Washington DC.

Saul of Tarsus thought he was pleasing God by being party to the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen.  Before he was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, Saul was breathing out murderous threats to innocent Christians in Damascus.  He threw some in jail - in some cases, they may well have died there.

Saul was just as much a religious terrorist as anyone in ISIS!  Saul did what he did because he thought this was God's will for him to do so.  Of course, God had other ideas on the subject and the Apostle Paul was created.  For him, there was no more killing of Christians. Paul himself was beheaded for his Christian activities by Nero.  Even a religious terrorist with blood on his hands can be converted to Jesus.  And yes, murder seems to be repaid, even if you have converted.

Meanwhile, radical Muslims are killing Christians around the world.  This is something mandated by Islam; the Koran says in Chapter IX Verse 123 to 'fight the unbelievers and let them find a harshness within you.'

Unfortunately, the enlightened age we have lived in failed to remember that there is a sickness which must always be held in check.  Islam marched into Europe through force three hundred years ago, into the East seven hundred years earlier and continued a fight only ending at Vienna in 1683 with a slaughter.   And this harshness referred to, to be shown those whom do not believe - a harshness which would kill innocent Christians, even children, in Iraq and Syria. This barbarism should be a wake-up call to the West.

Just as my cousin's death was to me ...