The world correctly has been outraged by the kidnapping of the 276 Nigerian girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. We pray that God will protect them from these criminals who intend to sell them as sex slaves and deliver them to return to their families. However, lost amid all the media attention on this case, is the reason these girls were kidnapped. They are Christians. Boko Haram is Muslim. This is another incident of the horrendous persecution of the church of Jesus by Muslim insurgents and terrorists in Nigeria. It infuriates me the way the press makes it appear that this is an equal opportunity conflict with vicious Christians on one side and vicious Muslims on the other. It is not. The only crime those on the Christian side of the conflict have been guilty of has been having faith in Jesus instead of Mohammed. Those poor little girls have received this despicable treatment purely due to the fact that they are identified with Christ.
Last evening our sermon passage was found in Genesis 38. It is an ugly passage. It tells the story of Judah, his sons Er, Onan, and Shelah, and Er's wife Tamar. Judah marries a Canaanite woman and has three sons. His sons are so evil that God kills both Er and Onan for their wickedness. Because Judah fears the loss of his remaining son, he fails to fulfill his obligation to Tamar of marrying her to his last son so that an heir might be raised up to Er. Seeing the failure of her father-in-law, Tamar takes matters into her own hand by dressing as a prostitute and sleeping with Judah. Judah, unaware of with whom he has had sex, subsequently hears that Tamar is pregnant by immorality. He demands that she be brought out and burned for her crime (can anyone say "hypocrite?"). Tamar then produces the evidence against her father-in-law and he relents. The story ends with the birth of twin boys. I jokingly called the sermon the "Jerry ...
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