Persecution Database

John Yeager, along with our wives. We have just returned from Israel. Charlie, what an experience to meet with folks who have gone through so much and hear all those firsthand accounts.

this year with your family and friends. Now to get this free offer, just go to Life in Messiah org and click on the Moody Radio button to find out more and request your copy. That's life in messiah.org.

up there during Ramadan in 2023. Just a year ago, Ramadan coincided with Passover and there were conflicts on successive days as stones were thrown from the Temple Mount down on the Western Wall Plaza where Jews had gathered to pray. There's always tension during Ramadan, especially following Friday prayers. So what can Israel do to help de-escalate the situation? Well,

two approaches have been suggested, and they're mutually exclusive. The first is that of the national security minister Ben-Gvir, who suggested limiting Arab-Israeli access to the site to worshippers over the age of 70. The other approach, proposed by the head of Israel's security services is to not limit access to the site. He believes limiting access will turn the Gaza war into a Jewish Muslim fight, rather than an Israeli Hamas conflict. And that just plays into the hands

of Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu asked different cabinet members to provide options for age criteria or other quotas for Israeli citizens. The real problem is that Ramadan and the Temple Mount are religious issues. It's no accident that Hamas named their October 7th attack the Al-Aqsa flood, a recent UN report said al-Qaida is changing its messaging since October 7th to focus on the so-called sanctity of the Al-Aqsa mosque as

a way to help restore its credibility. Watch for Israel to look for a way to limit the size of the crowds, especially young males, while still trying to maintain a low profile. Also watch to see what they can do to restrain the more extreme right wing Jewish element. Who would like to use the time to push for greater Israeli control over the area. This next month will be a sensitive time. Just pray that the leadership there has great wisdom and that cooler heads prevail.

during that period. The Temple Mount Sifting Project, which for the past 20 years has been sifting dirt discarded from the Mount when the Muslims built an underground mosque, are the ones who made this discovery. The two small objects each way. Just. Two hundredths of an ounce. That's half the weight of a paperclip. So these are small discoveries. One was made of glass, the other was made of brass. They're likely official imperial weights that were required to be

present in major churches. These and other objects discovered suggest a Byzantine church might have stood on the site prior to the Islamic invasion. Now, since no excavation is allowed up on the site, we can't know for sure. But this fine, small as it is, does raise that intriguing possibility.

It's hosted guests like Winston Churchill. It's an incredible property. Another hotel is the old Cataract Hotel in Aswan. I've stayed there, John. It's one of the most luxurious hotels I've ever seen. A concerning part of these sales is that once the funds have been spent, the assets are gone. Now all isn't doom and gloom for Egypt. There are

some positive investments being made in the country. Recently, the United Arab Emirates unveiled a major energy pipeline project to link Egypt to Europe and generate income for Egypt and a group of Turkish investors are entering the Egyptian spinning, weaving and clothing sector to take advantage of Egypt's low cost labor. They hope to provide 70,000 direct jobs and an additional 100,000 indirect jobs, which would help the Egyptian economy.

Egypt also signed a multibillion dollar deal with Gulf state investors to build a state of the art city west of Alexandria. Construction would pump billions into the economy immediately, with the hope that the new city will then attract business investment and tourism once it's completed. The real question now is if Egypt can get some of these projects up and running before the country runs out of cash or things to sell to keep its economy afloat?

The purpose of the tunnel, it's not yet known, and part of it is still submerged in water because it's right up north near the Mediterranean. It was discovered in connection with a temple dedicated to Osiris, the god of death. Cleopatra tried to identify herself with ISIS, the mythological sister and wife of Osiris. Sculptures of ISIS, along with coins depicting the names and likeness of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great,

have been found at the site. Now it's located west of Alexandria, right by the Mediterranean Sea, as I mentioned. But the questions that still need to be answered and that weren't answered so far in this article. Why was the tunnel built? Where does it lead? And is it connected somehow to the still undiscovered tomb of Cleopatra? Now, having raised the issues, they didn't provide the answers that I was looking for, but hopefully, hopefully those answers will come to light as the dig progresses.

is next here on the land and the book. Discrimination and violence is nothing new for Christians around the world, as believers were promised troubles in this life. But is persecution a static thing, or are some areas kind of stepping up their hatred toward Christians? One organization has begun a database to keep track of it all, and we'll let you take a look at that next. Welcome back to the land and the book from Moody Radio. I'm John Jaeger here to share a quick idea. First, on

sharing Christ with your Muslim friend or neighbor. Listen to this. You ever wonder what the Bible is referring to when it talks about Israel's spiritual blindness? Let's ask Wes Taber, who's an ambassador with life in Messiah. What do we mean by that?

Doctor Curry currently serves on the United States Commission on Religious Freedom. And we want to say welcome to the land of the book, Doctor Curry.

where would that be? North Korea, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, some of these places that we we hear about in the news where extremist and or governments are targeting Christians in their faith. What this index does that's different, however, is it really measures all violent incidents and incidents of persecution against any faith. And I tell you why that's important, John, because for over a decade I've been reporting on violence against Christians, but there's no context for it to get

questions over and over again. What does that mean compared to what? And this index will measure all incidents, whether it's antisemitism against Jews or violence against Christians or others. So you're going to have a context ability, as the database grows, to really see religious freedom as a whole. And I think at that point, people are really going to understand how massive the persecution and targeting of Christians has been and is right now.

validated these attacks, the data is unassailable. So up until now, everybody sort of in their own category, somebody's talking about anti-Semitism, and people could say, oh, that never really happened. Or people would say, oh, the persecution of Christians isn't as big as you say in your list that only talks about Christians. These numbers are unassailable. They have been validated two, three, four, five different ways. So you could see the volume and

the scale of this problem. For example, in India we've had over 62,000 Christians and some Muslims who've been displaced in the last year because extremist Hindus who have a nationalist agenda, they're tied to this is the the militant arm of the Indian government has attacked Christian communities in Manipur and another district called Chhattisgarh and in other regions. So the Indian government denies it or they don't want to talk about it. They don't want to say that

they're part of it. But this is unassailable data and people have to deal with that, and it has political ramifications. But I also think, John, this is meant to wake up the church. My heart is, is that the church stand with persecuted believers, that we rally around them, that we understand that one of the tactics of the devil is to use violence to make people flee from their faith.

And it works in some cases. And so if you want to strengthen the church, you have to start with serving the persecuted, praying for them, understanding their needs, and trying to find a way to strengthen the church and to stand with it.

is a Christian country, has been a Christian country. One of the first, if they they would claim they were the first Christian country to identify to say we're we are a Christian country back in, you know, many decades ago, I think it's 894 or something like that. AD so they have been a Christian country, people practicing their Christian faith. In the last few months, you've had 120,000 Armenian Christians who have been forcibly removed from their homes by the

Azerbaijan government and the Christian heritage. There, again, centuries old, has been deleted, destroying churches, destroying Christian landmarks in order to sort of prove in their mind that this has always been Muslim territory and to force people into that faith.

And it's tragic and it's not on anybody's radar. 120,000 Christians removed from their homes, and now they're stateless because technically they were Azerbaijan's citizens, but now they've been forced into Armenia and they've been welcomed by Armenia, but they're not Armenian citizens. So, I mean, there's just a lot going on there. And this is the targeting of Christians in the Middle East. Armenia is just above Iran. It should be a partner with Israel, but they haven't been

welcomed there yet either. So there's a lot going on there. This is the sort of thing that's revealed in the data that you could see compared to what else is going on. That is a major story that most people don't know about.

to faith from a muslim background. And within that structure, some extremists interpret Muslim theology to say that anybody who leaves and not even extremists, many people across it would say anybody who leaves the Muslim faith is an infidel extremist, would say that gives them the right to kill them, to rape them, to beat them. And sometimes that happens where people come to faith from a muslim background and they're disassociated from their family. They can lose their job.

And you see this amongst Palestinian Christians who are really struggling because they're denied, you know, a kind of understanding from the Muslim community in Palestine. And they don't fit within the the Israeli context. And so they just feel left out of place. But they're believers in Jesus. That redeeming story, the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus that transformed their life. But they come from a muslim background and

it's really hard for them. So that's a church within the Middle East, Muslim background, believers that most people don't realize. Millions of people now who have come to Christ many times, miraculously, who are living there within the Middle East, and they face every kind of persecution, including martyrdom.

were your own family, as if it were yourself. And this is the key. That's the sentence. It is your family. And so I think we lack an understanding. Part of my calling is to wake up the church and say, this gentleman here, whose name may be Mohammed, he may have come from a muslim background, but he is a follower of Jesus. Therefore he is your brother. We need to care. It seems like we believe somehow, maybe not intentionally, that there's a distance between where they're at and where

we're at. But here's the challenge, John, and I think you know this. I hope your listeners know this persecution and. Intolerance of Christians is growing here too, and the spiritual lessons that these people go through because they're strong and even in the midst of it, joyful in many cases, is the lessons we have to learn. How do you practice your faith? How does it become violent when it is opposed? When you're discriminated, when you lose everything? Is

he still enough? And these are key spiritual questions. And that's part of why. One of my key elements is to post stories on our website Global Christian Relief. Org videos stories of transformation, of inspiration, and yes, in difficult circumstances. But it's still powerful and in an odd way that only happens in the spirit. Really, it is inspiring.

answer Nicaragua wouldn't have thought of that. No 179 churches were closed. And that's because Daniel Ortega and his administration is targeting Catholic and evangelical churches, that he sees them as a threat to his power. He's a communist and every communist country, there's some form of targeting of Christians. And they have been closing churches, arresting priests, arresting pastors

who stand up to the government. They just released 18 priests yesterday, sent them back to Rome, but they had been held in detention, including a major bishop, Alvarez, for many months. And all they were doing is practicing their faith. But they didn't go along with the communist dogma that said that that was preeminent. That's the challenge within communism, that that system has to be preeminent. Nothing else can

stand up to it. Not Jesus, not anybody. That's the same problem that China has with Christianity, that they don't want any theology idea person above their communist ideology. And so Nicaragua's closing a lot of churches right now. You can just go in and select these fields and say, you know, where were the most people arrested? Where were the most people abducted for their faith? And again, these are baseline numbers. You will see, for example, in Nigeria,

over 5800 people were abducted because they were Christians. And just all kinds of interesting tidbits. Anybody can access it. Our website, Global Christian Relief, is a portal to go see what's happening there. And and researchers. I'm hoping we'll go and policymakers and really dig into it.

first though, Passover soon going to be upon us. And one of the traditional Passover questions is what makes this night different from all others? Could you answer that? Passover is an important biblical holiday that has great meaning for both Jewish people and believers in Jesus. So I'm thinking this is a great question to ask Charlie.

this year with your family and friends. To get this free offer, just go to Life in Messiah org and click on the Moody Radio button to find out more and request your copy. That's life in Messiah.

But then Jesus explains what he means in the next phrase thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When the kingdom arrives, God's rule over the earth will match his rule in heaven, and ultimately that awaits the arrival of Jesus back to earth. As King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And the first part of it's defensive in nature. He starts with godly character. It's the first defense where to wear the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness and be ready to share the gospel. God's good news about Jesus. We're also to carry the shield of faith, our conscious choice decision to believe what God has said in spite of Satan trying to sow seeds of doubt in our mind and the helmet of salvation. That's God's protection over us. No matter what, God has guaranteed the

salvation of those who've placed their trust in him. But I love it. Paul ends with two offensive weapons we have to defeat Satan, the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God, and prayer. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he used the Word of God to defeat Satan's attacks. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, he told the disciples to watch and pray that you

enter not into temptation. So I believe the confession of sin is an important part, but the Word of God and the power of the spirit in prayer are the two big things. Now, one final item, uh, we're called on to resist the devil in Ephesians six and also in James four, and we do it primarily through prayer in the Word of God. But there is one other exception when it comes to sexual temptation, which you also mentioned, we're told to flee rather than to try and stand

and oppose it on our own. You know, Paul told the people in Corinth to flee immorality. He told Timothy to flee youthful lusts, and we should more like Joseph. You remember when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife. The best way to avoid sexual sin is to put as much distance between you and it as possible.

children from a previous marriage when Jesus was born. This is like the Catholic belief that Mary was a perpetual virgin. I believe that she was a virgin before Jesus birth, but afterwards had a natural sexual relationship. What do you think?

Jesus birth. It literally says Joseph did not know her. That is in a sexual sense until she gave birth to a son. The implication is that Joseph did begin having sexual relations with his wife following Jesus birth.

and Christian Arab victims. It wasn't a Zionist plot against Christians or Palestinians. Now the cleric who replaced the one who was murdered and who eventually helped capture the assailant, he verified the assailant was one individual whom he identified

as a madman. I think what makes this story anti-Semitic is that it's been expanded and embellished over time, so that that one mentally disturbed man became a group of fanatical Zionists who supposedly used a hatchet to display the sign of the cross on the priest's body and plucked out his eyes and chopped off three fingers to make him renounces Orthodox faith. Now, those added details parallel some of the medieval charges made against Jews, and were designed

to inflame Christians into seeking retribution. And that's why I believe the inclusion of those details is what crosses over the line into anti-Semitism. A best defense against something like that is online ability. Now go back and try and find the original factual accounts of what happened, and then see what was altered to vilify a specific group that had no real connection to the event itself. And that's what happened in the later accounts of this event, which really did happen back in 1979.

it all being the life of the unborn child. Though a horrible deed was committed, it doesn't seem right to me to impose the death penalty on the child in the womb for something that he or she didn't do. Those guilty of the crime ought to be punished, but that unborn child is still precious in God's eyes. Now, the issue of requiring an abortion to preserve the life of the mother is slightly different. But what I suspect is that the number of times where this might actually

be the case are extremely rare. Uh, Doctor John Wolford was president of Dallas Seminary for years, and he told the story of how his mother was told she needed to have an abortion to save her life. She refused, and both mother and child lived, and he was that unborn child. There are many options now available to help protect the lives of both the mother and the unborn child, and I suspect this is used more as a theoretical

excuse than an actual life and death situation. If the mother is committed to giving birth to the child, I believe that in most every case her desire can be accomplished. The bottom line for me is that an unborn child is a human life, and if we accept that premise, then it changes how we approach these exceptional situations. We would no more kill an unborn child who was born as the result of rape or incest, than we would kill a child already born who was the result of

rape or incest. So I still think the child's life is the most precious.

immediately by another seven day banquet. That suggests to me that they were doing more than just drinking wine, you know, half a year of just wine and no food. That's hard to believe. So I think the food was there. And then also in one nine, the original Queen Vashti. He gave a banquet for the women in the palace, which doesn't mention wine. So anyway, because of the use of the term banquet, I believe there's eating and drinking wine at these different events. The wine was used because

it indicated extravagance. In the event, it'd be kind of like, pardon the expression on us. We'd be like someone at a modern wedding reception saying it's going to feature an open bar, so there's food, but lots of drink. And that's what was being said there and what the King was doing.

our host, is continuing his devotional series. Objects on my shelf. Now, Charlie, I've seen that shelf of yours. You've got plenty of material for devotionals, but among those objects, apparently a piece of flint.

And I think what it's done for me is it's changed me dramatically, but it has also given me a resolve to be the kind of believer I need to be for Israel.

also have a rock that I picked up there. The rocks I want to show you today come from the Judean wilderness, which happens to be my favorite spot in Israel. These rocks aren't the typical limestone or chalk or even basalt rocks that one normally sees in Israel. These six all have something of a glossy sheen and relatively straight edges, and their colors a mixture of black, brown, and gray. The three larger pieces have a thin layer of chalky

limestone attached. I must be hungry because one of them reminds me of a brownie, a very thin brownie with a light tan marshmallow like topping on top. The smaller pieces have jagged, almost razor sharp edges. One even looks like it would make an excellent arrowhead. So what are these rocks? Well, depending on who you talk to, they're referred to as flint or chert. Flint is a variety of chert flints, usually black or dark gray, while chert

can come in a combination of shades. Of the six pieces on my shelf, one definitely appears to be flint, while the other five might be classified as chert, but it really doesn't matter since apart from color, the stones share the same basic properties. Both flint and shirt are a type of quartz, which is why these rocks appear somewhat glossy, and when they're split, these rocks form edges

similar in appearance to broken glass. Flint and chert are both hard enough to incise scratches on a glass bottle, and they can be found embedded in limestone and chalk. As those rocks weathered down, the flint remains and ends up scattered along the top of the ground. I picked up all these pieces while walking in the Judean wilderness. Now that I've shown you the rocks, let's head to the area in the wilderness where I found them. As our bus stops, follow me up the hillside just to

our left. It's a bit of a walk, so take your time and pace yourself. A good way to do that is to look down at the rocks along the pathway. There are many pieces of white limestone or chalk, but look for the dark rocks scattered among them. Some are quite large, but focus on the smaller pieces. You know, the ones that will fit into your suitcase without putting you over that £50 limit for your flight home. Now we've reached the top and we're looking into the Wadi quilt.

It's one of those oh wow experiences in Israel. But before you get distracted, let's look more closely at the rocks you collected on the way up. Now I see lots of brown, gray, and even black flint and chert sums embedded in a layer of chalk, but other pieces are not. Now turn them over in your hand and let the sun reflect off them. Notice the sharp edges and the glossy sheen. You can also see the hardness of the flint, especially if it's attached to a piece

of limestone or chalk. That side produces a chalky residue when you rub your fingers over it. But the flint is hard. It doesn't come off when you rub it in your fingers. You now have an interesting and absolutely free souvenir to take home with you to put on your shelf, but let me add a biblical connection to make it even more significant. The Bible uses several words for flint, and it also pictures several uses for this

hard stone. In Exodus four. In Joshua five, knives were made from flint and were used to circumcise Moses's son and the children of Israel. Now, depending on the piece you picked up, you might even be able to imagine using its sharp edge as a knife. Limestone might seem hard, but it's not impervious. Water can seep through it, but flint is impervious to water. When Moses struck the rock in the wilderness in Exodus 17, I always imagined him striking a large piece of limestone which broke open to

allow water to flow out. But in Deuteronomy 915, Moses says, God brought water for you out of the rock of Flint. And in the last verse of Psalm 114, the psalmist also said, God turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of water. Two different words are used in those verses, but both refer to flint. Moses split a large flint rock that would normally resist being split in two by a mere wooden staff, and God brought water from a rock never associated with natural springs.

But perhaps the greatest use of flint in the Bible, both for good and for evil, is. It's used to describe stern, hard determination. In Zechariah seven, God summarized why the nation of Judah went into captivity. He sent them into captivity because the people had hardened their hearts and refused to respond to his message. God says it in this way. They made their hearts as hard as Flint, and would not listen to the law or the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit the.

Through the earlier prophets. They hardened their hearts until they were as impervious to God's Word as a piece of flint is to water, they became hard and unyielding. But the hardness of flint is also used in the Bible as a positive illustration. Isaiah used flint to describe the resolute decision of the servant of the Lord, a prophetic picture of Jesus to remain true in spite of opposition. Listen to what he says in Isaiah 50 verses six and seven. I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheek, to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting because the sovereign Lord helps me. I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. If you want to know how resolute and determined Jesus was to endure persecution at the time of his crucifixion, squeeze that piece of flint. But the same kind of determination and fortitude that Jesus demonstrated has also been made available by

God to his followers. How do I know this? Listen to God's promise to Ezekiel when he called him as a prophet to a rebellious nation about to be judged, I will make your forehead like the hardest stone harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. Whatever opposition Ezekiel was about to face and he faced much, God promised to strengthen and protect him, to make him harder than Flint. It's time to head back from the Judean

wilderness to my office and to say our goodbyes. But before you go, take one last look at that piece of flint in your hand and there on my shelf, and then think about how God used these rocks to illustrate his truth in the Bible. Water gushing from flint, struck by a wooden stick. That's definitely a miracle. The hardness of flint. To illustrate determination, hold a piece of

flint in your hand and that makes perfect sense. It pictures the determination of the servant Jesus, who willingly suffered and died to pay the penalty for our sin. Sadly, it can also picture the determination of those in sin to continue refusing to listen to God's warning of impending judgment. And finally, it can serve as a reminder to us that God will give us the strength and ability to stand firm for him, even in times of trouble. So what do you see when you look at that piece

of flint? Hopefully it's not a graphic reminder of a heart hardened against God. How about an illustration of how God can cause living water to flow from something as hard as flint? And he demonstrated that by having his own son have a flint like determination to suffer and die, to pay the penalty for our sin so we can experience God's forgiveness. And finally, if we turn to God, he'll give us the strength and hardness of flint to

allow us to stand firm for him. Flint. Just one kind of stone, but with many applications.

Thanks for listening today to the land in the book, our host, Doctor Charlie Dyer, our producer, Danny Anderson, I'm John Geiger and we point you to our website as always. It's the land and the book.org. Join us next time for another edition of The Land and the book, a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.