Life Matters - November 15, 2023
…The three evangelists stuck in the Gaza Prison system were being told, in an attempt at religious coercion, that all they had to do was quote the Muslim religious creed and they would be “set free.” The creed is the major tenet of Islam. Saying, “Our God is one God and Muhammed is his prophet” would gain them the freedom to walk out of prison, to return to their families, to return to their former lives.
But (and this is a life changing, mind-altering “but”) these men had known bondage, had been set free from spiritual, religious, and personal bondage. The blood of Jesus Christ had cleansed them from sin from the inside out. They had learned and experienced the liberty, the freedom in spirit that is God’s reward to those who live in subjection to Christ. With Tabirri interpreting, Abraheem informed us that these men were all in for Jesus. There was no turning back. The shock ‘’treatments’’ were intensifying and they knew the possibility, even the likelihood, of losing their mental faculties as their tormentors sought to eradicate memories of their faith in Christ. But, even in prison these men were free. Free in Christ. So free in Christ that their tormentors were the helpless ones.
Not long after this, one of these three men was released from prison. The shock treatments, however, had ruined his health. He was reduced to an inability to even take care of himself. A grown younger man reduced to the brain development of a one year old or less. He died within months of being released. Abraheem went to the same prison again to visit the two remaining men, but there was no record of them ever having been there. “No record? But I visited them here.” ‘’No record,” they insisted, ”these men were never here.” Abraheem had no choice. He left, and those men were never heard from again. Another sad commentary on the religion of Islam and of those who adhere to its precepts.
In the devoutly religious Muslim schools, the students are taught to love Muhammad and the Koran, but to hate the Jews and the Christians. In that order. Hamas is one of those devoutly religious groups and often refer to the UN recognized state of Israel as “The Occupation,” in reference to the 1948 and onward displacement of many Palestinians. When Palestine was taken from them by the League of Nations and returned to the Jews they promptly revived its former name, “Israel.” Perhaps the aforementioned hatred is what I saw reflected on the face of a young teenage boy gaming in an open-air game room us Americans strolled past at an open-air shopping mall that Tabirri took us to visit on the way home to Jerusalem one afternoon. The boy’s handsome, olive-skinned face was set in a determined coldness akin to hatred as he passionately “manned the guns killing the enemy,” his piercing black eyes flashing and black hair framing his tense face forming a sinister picture my brain instantly retained only to haunt me still at inopportune times. Could I have communicated with him? I didn’t even think of asking Tabirri to interpret. Maybe the boy knew English? I don’t know because it didn’t enter my brain to try, and that’s partly what haunts me still. When I think of Muslim men attacking civilians in the Negev, I remember the intensity of that young man playing a shooting game at the Palestinian Mall and I wonder…
I also wonder about the gaming here in the America we are still pleased to call home. The relationship between violent gaming and the increase of violence ‘’here at home’’ has not been well documented that I know of, but with a liberal sprinkling of common sense methinks the connection becomes inevitably obvious. That is to say, it seems so obvious it can surely not be missed. Movie violence has its desensitizing influence, but the interactive screen only exacerbates the problem.
Simulated violence militates against Ephesians 4:8, “ Finally my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever thing of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Perhaps appetites need adjusted from junk food to the healthy. A robust body likes healthy food best. And a robust spiritual life loves healthy nourishment. Life Matters!