The popular cultural and societal notion is “there really is no evil” in this world. Even those in the liberal mainlines churches  refuse to come to terms that there is a devil – Satan – who is the accuser of the saints seeks to kill, steal and destroy. The atheist and the liberal deny the existence of evil for a simple reason. That reason is, to accept the existence of evil, one has to accept the existence of Good….and Who is Good? God is good!Those who are under the oppression of evil know it exists. They know it in the Christian towns of the Islamic Middle Eastern Countries, in Pakistan, throughout Africa where hordes are rampaging through Christian countries. The persecuted know that evil is not just those who suffered under Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Mao and Pol Pot.

To deny the existence of evil, and blame “society, or capitalism or democracy”, is easier than recognizing that our own sin opens us up to be brought down and put in spiritual bondage by evil.  This sort of thinking prevents many from coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and it remains an obstacle to most professing Christians, who accept the defeat of the devil. Both sets of people are outside of the Victory which God, through Christ, provides in the following:

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.  (Matthew 5:10-12, ESV)

When the terrorists in Syria recently charged the ancient Christian village of Maaloula in the Syrian mountainside where the minority Christians lived for almost 2000 years, do you think they felt blessed? According to eyewitnesses, the moslem terrorists told villagers “‘Either you convert to Islam or you will be beheaded,”. The village of Maaloula is one of the last on this earth which still spoke the ancient language of Aramaic. Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus Himself and can only be found in Syria, in these last days.

What has been happening during the violent Syrian civil war has already been repeated in Iraq, with one million Chaldean Christians being persecuted, killed and displaced and in Iran and other middle eastern countries. Pakistan and India are catching up with their cousins in the middle east and doing the same to God’s people.

These are just some of the latest examples of what has been happening to followers of Jesus Christ since before He was even crucified in 33 AD in Jerusalem. Jesus warned of this and this warning has been fulfilled time after time after time for almost 2000 years now. Persecution is occurring in not just these Arab countries, but in almost every corner of this earth.