The barbaric beheading of Lee Rigby an off-duty soldier on Wednesday 22nd May in London was reported in the Daily Mirror, ‘Horrified witnesses told last night how the off-duty soldier beheaded by
two Islamic terrorists yesterday was hacked at “like a piece of meat”. The
unnamed serviceman, wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt, was brutally butchered
with knives and meat cleavers after a car mounted the pavement and ploughed
into him. The barbaric killing that has shocked the nation happened at 2.20pm
on a busy main road just 50 yards from a primary school and 200 yards from
Woolwich Barracks in South East London.’ I cannot recall a beheading in the UK In my lifetime, it could have
happened but if it did it escapes my memory.
Wikipedia gives a comprehensive list of
beheadings which was a mode of execution in the UK during the 14th.
to 16th. Centuries. Henry V111 used it and Hitler guillotined many
who opposed him, one says, ‘Franz Jägerstätter (1943) – Guillotined in
Berlin as a conscientious objector.’
Murder is one thing but Lee Rigby’s
death was an execution carried out in the name of Allah! I have asked myself
which of the countries in the world today practice
beheading? It is more than brutal, it is barbaric. So if the streets of London
have been bloodied by the wilful decapitation of a random target, WHAT NEXT?
The same question could be asked in relation
to other immoral excesses, of that which goes beyond the bounds of decency and
righteousness. The first same sex marriage in France, a few days ago, attracted
thousands of protesters who believe that a same sex union is in
God’s eyes, an abomination.
Leviticus18:22 reads “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with
womankind: it is abomination,” and ch.20:13 “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth
with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be
put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
Many countries have
legalized same sex marriage and pose the question ‘WHAT NEXT’? The door is
opened for these unions to be acceptable for adopting children and surrogate
parenting with third parties. There are many children that have HIV from
heterosexual parents, my wife and I met and support such children. How
many more children are going to be brought into the world to die of Aids from
Sodomite unions?
One fears that as it was
in Hitler’s regime, that there will be no room for conscientious objectors to
declare their unwillingness to officiate at such marriages, and will lose their
employment and livelihood.
John the Baptist is a
typical example of what happens when a stand is made against immoral unions. He
proclaimed that Herod’s marriage to Herodias was an adulterous union, because
he had taken his brother Philip’s wife. She schemed John’s death and Herod sent
soldiers to behead him in prison. Her daughter Salome demanded the head to be
brought to her on a charger, and she gave it to her mother.
On another occasion,
tradition says that Herod had James the brother of the apostle John beheaded
and later in Rome tradition states that Paul also was beheaded.
In the program of God
the next event to take place is the coming of Christ to the air to take His
Church to Heaven. Every born-again person from the day of Pentecost to the
rapture (the Church caught-up to meet the Lord in the air) will be present. The
dead in Christ will rise first and then all living Christians will be changed
and given bodies suitable to live in Heaven. When the Church is
safely home with her Lord there will be events in Heaven and simultaneously
judgments will take place on earth. Matthew ch’s 24 and 25
tell us of happenings during the Tribulation, a seven year period of
unparalleled happenings, particularly during the second half, depicted as
forty-two months and twelve hundred and sixty days, or in Daniel’s language,
‘time, times and half a time’. During this period God
will raise up and send out 144,000 Jewish evangelists to go through all the
earth and preach the gospel of the Kingdom. They are the genuine Jehovah
Witnesses, 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Both Jews and Gentiles will
believe their message and own Christ as the coming King to reign over all the
earth from Jerusalem. Some will seal their faith with their blood. Revelation
20:10 says, “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was
given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness
of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast,
neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in
their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
One might be tempted to
say, ‘Is confessing Christ as Lord worth it?’ let Paul tell you his thoughts, “For
which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man
is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are
seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are
temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
If you
receive Christ today you will never see the troublous times on earth, you will
be safe in Heaven, far away from the axe man.
Are you saved? WHAT
NEXT? May God help you to trust His Word
and receive the Saviour. God bless.
Written by Stan Burditt for FTMP May 2013
