Theodore Shoebat
ISIS right now is attempting to conquer the Christian village of Sadad in Syria. This holy land, where Christ Himself walked with His divine feet, is on the eye of the enemy who desires with unquenchable blood lust to overrun the town. But, where men are united with God, the Almighty will use mortals who bear His image as His weapons, to combat the forces of evil. Five hundred Christian warriors charged into the town and crushed the Muslims, preventing them from invading the town. The Christians are now about to fight in a very intense battle, for the survival of this little microcosm of Christendom.
ISIS tried to enter the town, thinking that they would do so with ease, but there the Christians stood, there the Christians watched, like bold eagles assailing the winds, watching with assiduous eyes for the snake before tearing it to pieces with her penetrating claws.
In every holy war you have two forces at work: the warrior and the priest. As Moses was present with the warrior Joshua when they fought the Amelekites; as Melchizedek blessed Abraham after his victory over the pagans; as Jehoiada was with the warriors as they protected the king; as the priests were present with the soldiers in their conquest of Jericho, so is the priest accompanying these warriors who are protecting the Christian town in Syria.
Last Thursday, the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Mor Ignatius Aphrem Karim II, sojourned to Sadad to be with the warriors, and with his spiritual authority, rally up the troops and ignite in them the energy of morale and vigor. The Patriarch said:
It is under assault… IS advanced toward Sadad but they were not able to enter Sadad. The young people in Sadad, with the help of some armed groups, were able to fight back and push IS back to where they started. They are helped by some groups coming from different parts of Syria also.
A number of Muslims and Alawites have also come to the aid of the Christian warriors, just as the Nabataeans assisted Judas Maccabeus, and Abraham had Canaanite allies, and the Jew was rescued by the Samaritan. One Christian warrior said:
People from all over Syria have arrived to fight for Sadad. It is a symbolic place for us and we will not allow it to fall again. It was emotional but it was also very encouraging to see our young people determined to defend their land and stay in their homeland… To see them ready to fight and to sacrifice for their land, I think that’s what’s very meaningful, that made me very proud of them.
Nuri Kino, founder of the Middle Eastern advocacy group A Demand for Action said:
We hope that Sadad does not become a new Mosul, Nineveh, Khabour or al-Qaryatain… The people in Sadad and all those that joined them, many Christians from all over Syria, showed that they have had it with ISIS turning Christians into slaves. …It is better that we stay in our homeland… If we die here, we are defending our homeland and we are not trying to flee.
We should never try to isolate the physical world from the spiritual world, such is the error of the gnostic. We cannot simply look at a mountain and say, “It is just a mountain,” but rather we should gaze upon a mountain and see a doorway into Heaven. Moses ascended the holy mountain of Sinai, and saw the hand of God writing the eternal law of the heart; Moses died upon Mount Nebo, and after his death the Archangel Michael was “contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses” (Jude 1:9).
So close and intricate is the spiritual realm with the physical world. Christ warred against the devil and won, and when He crushed the grave and returned from the tomb, He showed His battle wounds, marked on His divine body, the holes on His hands, the slashes on His back, the injury on His side from the lance that struck Him. All of the wounds were still on His body, and this was after His Resurrection. The marks received from the hard fought battle against evil, goes into eternity. The wounds of the sacred warrior are holy, and so connected are they to the eternal, that they continue on, having meaning significance even in the timeless realm of eternity.
The warrior suffers for God, in the advancement of holiness, and in such does he participate in God, and because of his sacrifice, he is enwrapped by the divine glory. For Moses and Elijah — both holy warriors — were assumed into Heaven, and when Peter, James and John saw them in the Transfiguration, they were amidst the light of God, like the sun (Matthew 17:2). Moses and Elijah appeared with their bodies, and yet the divine glory illumined in their presence. The selfless actions of warring against evil made them worthy of theosis — total union with God — and so even their bodies were enwrapped by the heavenly illumination.
These warriors in Syria, when they fight, are imitations of Christ on the Cross, and with every sacrificial act they do, they participate in Christ, with Christ, and for Christ; even when the intensity of battle roars, they are in the presence of the Holy Mountain of Zion, in the midst of angels and saints, the souls of warriors and ascetic, in the presence of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit — Who are One — to Whom the glory is given now and forevermore. Amen.
Cristus vincit!
We have to prepare our minds and intellect for this spiritual war that we are in. This is why I made a 2-disk DVD series on teaching the warring spirit of the Christian Faith.
For too long Christianity has been watered down in our modern day as a pacifist faith with no inclination of fighting evil. But is the Church here to be weak and useless? This shocking and riveting two disk DVD set lecture series, passionately shows how Christianity is not here to be feeble, but for warfare, to be militant against tyranny and the forces of darkness.
You will not be dissatisfied after watching this lecture, and Bible studies will forevermore never be the same again.