Dying For Jesus

While I was reading this article the term "death cult" kept on popping into my head.

Tom and JoAnn Doyle are longtime missionaries to the Middle East, and my very dear friends.  I pray every morning for their protection and ministry.  Tom's book, Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World?, tells the incredible story of Muslims worldwide who are meeting Jesus in miraculous ways, including visions and dreams.  As a result of such miracles, more Muslims have come to Christ in the last 15 years than in the previous 15 centuries.

His new book, Killing Christians, tells the other side of the story.  Tom profiles eight Christians in the Middle East who are risking their lives to follow Jesus.  I began reading it last weekend and couldn't stop until I was done.  I urge you to buy his book and share it with anyone who needs encouragement to follow Jesus courageously.

Here are some examples of what you'll find: A believer smuggles Bibles into Somalia by hiding beneath decaying corpses in coffins.  A Christian in Syria, speaking to an underground church, says of their shared faith, "This will cost us our lives.  We will die for this."  He and his friends have already purchased a plot of ground in which to be buried when they are martyred.

In Baghdad, a Muslim comes to Christ through the kindness of an American soldier who shared his faith and gave him a Bible.  A Christian in Saudi Arabia struggles to understand why her friend Mina was martyred while she was miraculously spared.  She concludes: "Too often, even Christians forget that our faith is not primarily for this life.  It is for the life to come.  We who are still here are the ones who have been left behind.  Our real life has not even begun, but for martyrs like Mina, it has."

A believer in Alexandria, Egypt who was spared by miraculous intervention knows that "Jesus left me here to lift Him up in Alexandria.  It's as simple as that.  I have no other purpose."  He knows he will probably be martyred one day unless he bows to Islam, but testifies: "I will never bow down but to Jesus."
 
http://www.christianheadlines.com/

That bizarre story about hiding under decaying bodies in order to smuggle bibles into Somalia sounds like complete and utter bullshit to me. Sure, I can imagine some necrophiliac using the bible smuggling excuse to cover his perversion, but no way do I accept that bible smuggling is so difficult in Somalia that the smugglers must resort to such methods. Just pay a bribe to the border guard and he'll probably let you drive a truck load of bibles into the country.


You can read most of the story here:
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Christians
It starts at chapter 1.