"A Time of Distress Such as Has Not Happened"

“There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.” Daniel 12:1

The dead and the wounded cannot fade into the trash of yesterday’s news again. Not this time. Today it is Paris. Tomorrow? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.  If there is a cause to unite the sane people of the world it must be this: “eradicate jihadism in our lifetime.”  This is the least we can do for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

If you had asked me even two years ago, I would have denied that I would ever write a paragraph like the one you just read.  I hate the fact that we need to have wars. I was not a pacifist, but I had trouble believing that violence was the solution to violence. But this is different. Now it cannot be denied.  Evil has a name, and it is ISIS.  I cannot in good conscience sit here in my living room looking at a beautiful, sun-bathed frosted earth and ignore the truth that body parts are being cleaned up in Paris.  The French are not the enemy. I am the enemy of ISIS; everything I believe in; everything I preach; the God I worship; I am the enemy. ISIS wants to destroy me, my family; my grandsons, for God’s sake. They want to destroy my way of life and, most importantly, the foundations of my faith.  This is why I have today changed my mind.

John Robert Gallagher,  a Canadian volunteer fighting the Islamic State, wrote this:  “The terrorists’ own playbook sees the taking and holding of territory as a necessary step to discredit Western democracy and prove that the Caliphate is a real political possibility in the 21^st century. We have to prove that it is not. And like we did with Nazi Germany, we must crush it with overwhelming, unrelenting force….while the graves are still fresh…while there are still survivors to give testimony to the atrocities… .”

Mr. Gallagher is dead now, a result he knowingly risked in the battle to destroy evil. It is a battle Christian martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer fought as well.  The “great prince Michael” is looking for people willing to join him in the battle against evil.  The Word of God will overcome. But not without a battle that demands my unwavering support.