First the Saturday People, Then the Sunday People

History repeats itself.

This morning, as I watched the lighting of the flame at Yad Vashem to begin Holocaust Remembrance Day, I couldn’t help but think of how the Jewish people remain under siege by dark forces committed to their destruction (if there’s one stubborn constant in human history, it’s that).

At the same time, my thoughts turned to the Christians of the Middle East, who are today being subjected to a genocidal campaign by ISIS and other jihadist groups dedicated to exterminating followers of Jesus in the very region where His teachings first blossomed.

In other words, first the Saturday people (Jews), then the Sunday people (Christians). That old jihadist rallying cry is literally playing out in real time today before our very eyes.

Just as up to 1 million Jews were chased out of Arab and Muslim lands during the 20th century, many times with nothing but the clothes on their backs (what about their “right of return?”), so, too, are Christians being liquidated from places like Syria and Iraq where they have lived for centuries.

Anti-Semitism is soaring in Europe–driven mainly by the continent’s growing Muslim population–at the same time that Christians are being slaughtered by jihadist barbarians, from the beaches of Libya to the university halls of Nairobi.

The Iranian regime openly longs to push the Jewish State into the sea and is developing the doomsday weapons to make its evil dream a reality. Meanwhile, the self-declared caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, places a bullseye on America as the “Defender of the Cross.” You’d think that a declaration of war by ISIS would be enough to shake the Leader of the Free World from its slumber. Think again.

Sadly, if the beleaguered Jews and Christians on the other side of the Atlantic are still looking to President Obama for some kind of assistance, they’ll be bitterly disappointed.

President Obama has abandoned Israel during its time of greatest need, striking a treacherous deal with the Iranian regime that virtually assures the mad mullahs will acquire nuclear weapons unless Israel preemptively strikes their nuke facilities first (an increasingly difficult task).

Likewise, the president has delighted as of late in taking public potshots at followers of Jesus, the most recent coming at an Easter Prayer Breakfast in which he castigated “less-than-loving” Christians.

The president’s remarks came less than one week after that aforementioned massacre at a Nairobi university in which Muslim terrorists asked students if they were Christians before slaughtering them (147 people were butchered in all). Yet he made no mention of that incident, or “less-than-loving” Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, etc. that are blazing a trail of murder and mayhem across the globe.

History is repeating itself. Genocide–and potential genocide in the form of an Iranian Bomb–is unfolding as I write this. Yet Western leaders, led by the United States–are largely MIA on the great issue of our time.

Clearly, the answers won’t be found in the conference rooms of Washington, D.C. or Brussels.

But if you’re a believing Christian or Jew, you already knew that.
So don’t lose heart. Read this, from Psalm 37:12-15:

The wicked plot against the righteous
and gnash their teeth at them;
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for He knows their day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword
and bend the bow
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose ways are upright.
But their swords will pierce their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken.

God keeps his promises. That’s what keeps me going. And it should keep you going, too.