Revelation 2:1-11

Revelation 2:1-11

The Necesssary Ingredient is Love

To the church in Ephesus

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

To the Church in Smyrna

“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

“‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’

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In chapter one, we saw right at the beginning that there is a blessing for the one that reads this prophecy, the one that hears and the one that who keeps what is written in it. Why are they blessed? It says, “For the time is near.” Now it has been 1,922 years since the writing of this book. Yet, the time IS really near for every Christian, why? Because this book reveals that for every Christian, death results with being with Christ forever and reigning with him. So, however long our lifetime may be, 70, 80, 100, or 120 years, what is that in comparison to eternity? Eternity with Jesus comes very soon in relation to our eternity with him. This book will reveal that all Christians will reign and judge with Jesus. Now that is a real blessing! Has anyone ever wronged you? Has injustice been done to you? Some people may live their entire life seeking justice for how they have been wronged.

When I was 7 years old, my mom kicked me in the back. There were some things in gym class that I could never do because of that. I was angry! I took my anger out on others. I threw rocks at the dog from a few houses down from us. The lady that lived in the house told my parents on me and I tried to lie about it. Little did I know how hard it would be to lie about that when only 2% of the world population has red hair and I was the only kid on the block with red hair. And so many people did such bad things to me throughout my life, it is a wonder that I didn’t kill someone out of anger. It is a good thing that I became a Christian when I did. I saw that Jesus taught that the problem was things like anger and hate. I saw that if I would let Jesus take the anger and hate out of me, then maybe he would take it out of other people as well. Then I read the book of Revelation! I saw that we get to reign with Jesus and judge those that wronged us! Maybe those that break our backs will be doing backbreaking work for us in the millennium! Well, a few years ago, I went skiing. I hit a slippery spot and did a cartwheel high in the air, landing on my back and breaking 5 vertebrae. The surgeon put a 14 inch rod in my back and secured that with 6 screws going through 6 different vertebrae to hold everything in place. After I was allowed to go home, I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon. He showed me an x-ray of my back. He said, “See this vertebrae here. This one was cracked all the way through. We debated what to do about it. Then we saw that the vertebrae above it had the spinous process broken off, bent down, then healed up. I would estimate that happened when you were about 7 years old. Anyway, because of where that was, we were able to fuse that to the vertebrae that we had the most concern about and bring more stability to it, so we didn’t have to do something more drastic.”

All things work together for the good of those that love God. Don’t they? They do! Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

So, we are embarking on a book that was written during the reign of Domitian, who metted out a terrible persecution across the Roman Empire. He had John, the author of this book thrown into a vat of hot oil and then exiled on the island of Patmos. We are going to see that the churches that John writes to were going through similar persecutions. But what is this book going to tell us? It is going to tell us that the Christians are going to reign with Jesus, not just for his 1,000 year reign on earth, but for all eternity. I wonder how Domitian is going to feel when he looks up at the judgment seat of God, sees Jesus right next to him, and then sees all the Christians he ordered persecuted sitting right next to Jesus. I think his little heart is going to sink right on down to his little toe.

As for the Christians, God will wipe away every tear.

In the last chapter, we saw that the seven golden lampstands in heaven represent the seven churches that John is writing to. The temple that Moses built for God had golden lampstands with seven branches. The Romans documented that when they destroyed the Jewish temple, they took off with golden lampstands that had seven branches. Isn’t it amazing how the temple plan represented God’s plan in heaven. All along God planned that there would be churches and what would the churches be?

A lampstand – a bearer of light!

We are a bearer of light! For all intensive purposes, we are the light of the world.

Let’s see how some of these lights are doing.

The light in Ephesus:

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

The church in Ephesus gets some good marks:

They work hard.
They are patiently enduring – probably enduring persecution.
They cannot bear those who are evil.
They tested false apostles, revealing them.
They hate the works of the Nicolaitans, who were known for sexual immorality.By the way, this word comes from two words.Nico, which means to subdue, and Laitan, which means people.Every cult has some form of subduing people involved.

The church in Ephesus gets one bad mark:

They abandoned the love they had at first.They didn’t just lose the love they had.They abandoned it.Maybe they abandoned it because they were busy with correct doctrine.Maybe they abandoned it because they chose something worldly in its place.Ephesus was an economic hub for its time.Maybe they were busy with commerce.Whatever it was they did instead, they did so consciously.They knew they were leaving it.

In Ephesians 1:15, the apostle Paul commended the Ephesian church for their love towards all the saints. Yet in Ephesian 4:31-32, Paul had to remind them how to love their fellow Christians better.

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

And in Ephesians 5:1-2,

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

And in the last verse in that letter, Ephesian 6:24,

“Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.”

Each person needs to ask themselves, “Did I abandon the love I had at first, when I became a Christian?” Jesus told us to lay up treasures in heaven, but what are the really big rewards in heaven? If we are going to be in God’s paradise, aren’t we going to eventually have every material thing we could want? So, what are the really big treasures in heaven?

(The people that we bring there).

So, the Ephesians get one warning in Revelation 2:5,

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

And they get one promise in Revelation 2:7,

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

In each of these messages to the churches, Jesus relates to each church differently. To the church in Ephesus, he is the one that holds the seven stars and walks among the seven lampstands. These are both images of light. This church needs to show their love. If they don’t show their love, their lampstand will be removed. Jesus is telling this church that this is crucial. You can do everything right as far as doctrine and walking right with God, but if you don’t show your love, you lose the whole mission. Everything we do should be for the love of God and to love others with the love of God. Without this we are nothing. If I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing ( 1 Corinthians 13:2).

Jesus says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” He said churches – Plural. So, what applies to this church, applies to all churches. If we don’t show our love, we lose the whole mission.

To the Church in Smyrna

“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

Good things about this church:

They endured tribulation.
They endured poverty.
They were rich in the faith.
They endured slander.

Not so good things about this church.

They are about to suffer more persecution, though no fault of their own.

Jesus gives them words of encouragement.

Jesus tells them what will happen.
- Some of them will be thrown in prison.
- They will have tribulation only for ten days.
Jesus tells them to be faithful even unto death.

Their only warning is an advance notice of what will happen.

Their promise is the crown of life. Jesus relates to them as the first and the last, who died and came to life. He reminds them that he has power over death, and he promises to them that in the end they will have life. What an assurance! The gospel is not good news without the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is how we know – without a doubt – that when we have faith in Jesus, we too will be raised from the dead.

Last week, I mentioned how that The Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi, China had 50,000 members and have been persecuted. They had their Bibles taken away from them. They had some of their officials thrown in prison. And they had their 3 ½ million dollar church demolished. But there is still a Golden Lampstand Church there. That is perseverance. Perseverance means you keep persisting to spread the gospel no matter what.

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More than 125,000 of Iraq's Christians have been forced to flee the homeland they have lived in for nearly 2,000 years because of ISIS violence and threats.

The following script is from "Iraq's Christians" which aired on CBS on March 22, 2015. Lara Logan is the correspondent.

“There are few places on earth where Christianity is as old as it is in Iraq. Christians there trace their history to the first century apostles. But today, their existence has been threatened by the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State. More than 125,000 Christians -- men, women and children -- have been forced from their homes over the last 10 months.

The Islamic State -- or ISIS -- stormed into Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, last summer and took control. From there, it pushed into the neighboring villages and towns across this region, known as the Nineveh Plains, a vast area that's been home to Christians since the first century after Christ. Much of what took almost 2,000 years to build has been lost in a matter of months.”

On the side of a mountain, overlooking the Nineveh Plains of ancient Mesopotamia, is the Monastery of St. Matthew. It's one of the oldest on earth.

The voices of its monks have echoed here since the fourth century, uttering prayers that have not changed.

Lara Logan: You do the service in Aramaic?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: Which was the language of Jesus.

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: Are you among the last people on earth to speak this language?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: We think so because we kept this language through the language of prayers.

Prayers through centuries of persecution. Father Joseph Ibrahim is one of only seven monks left here. He told us the monastery was founded in 363, and has survived the Persian and Ottoman empires, Mongol invaders and Kurdish conquests. Today, it's threatened by the Islamic State, whose fighters advanced towards St. Matthew's gates shortly after taking Mosul last summer. Kurdish soldiers pushed them back to this village where their flag still flies only four miles from the monastery.

Lara Logan: What are you most afraid of?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Unknown future.

Lara Logan: The unknown future?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: What do you think is going to happen?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: We don't know exactly but we are expecting the worse.

The road from St. Matthew's brings you to the front line, just six miles from the outskirts of Mosul. Every town and village between here and the occupied city is in the hands of the Islamic State. And now, we're told, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, there are no Christians left inside Mosul.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot.

Nicodemus Sharaf is the Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul, one of about 10,000 Christians who fled the city. We found him living as a refugee in the Kurdish capital, Erbil. He said ISIS fighters were already inside Mosul when he escaped.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: I didn't have any time to take anything. I was told I had five minutes to go. Just I took five books that are very old.

Among them, this Aramaic manuscript. He told us it was written 500 years ago and said he left behind hundreds more older than this one - Christian relics that may never be recovered.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: I think they burn all the books. And we have books from the first century of the Christianity.

Lara Logan: You had from the first century.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: Yes, of the Christianity. When I remember this, I cannot ...(crying) from the beginning the Christianity, this is the first time we cannot pray in our churches.

As it seeks to erase Christianity from the landscape, the Islamic state allows no Christian symbols. It just released these photographs which show the desecration of the church at what is believed to be the monastery of Mar Gorgis, just north of Mosul.

And nothing is sacred. ISIS blew up this mosque just over a month after taking here -- it's a site holy to both Christians and Muslims because the Old Testament prophet Jonah was said to be buried inside.

Just like the Nazis marked the property of Jews, Christian homes in Mosul have been marked with this red symbol. It's the Arabic letter N - for Nasara - an early Islamic term for Christians. When ISIS puts it on your home, you either convert to Islam, pay an extortion tax or face the sword.

Issah Al Qurain is one of tens of thousands who had to make that choice. He was at home with his family in the Christian village where he'd lived all his life, when ISIS fighters came looking for him. He told us the fighters first took all his money - then his wife and children.

Lara Logan: They were telling you convert, convert, convert?

Issah Al Qurain (translated): Yes, convert. In the beginning, I refused. I told them I was Christian and I had my religion and they had their religion. But they told me, if you don't convert, we will kill you and take your wife and children.

He agreed and was taken to Mosul to convert where he was reunited with his family. Soon, ISIS fighters were asking about his young daughter, and he told us that frightened him more than anything.

Issah Al Qurain (translated): They said to me that in Islam, the Sharia says, girls that are 10 years old should get married. As soon as they left, my wife and I shut the door. We looked at each other and she started to cry and pray. We were so scared they were going to take our daughter from us.

They escaped in the back of a taxi. Issah says they talked their way through three ISIS checkpoints and traveled for over four hours on back roads to Erbil where, like Archbishop Sharaf, they now live as refugees.

Some 30,000 Christians were living in Erbil before this crisis, most of them Chaldean Catholics, who follow their own ancient traditions but recognize the authority of the pope. Bashar Warda is the archbishop of this diocese. He says his congregation has swelled by more than 60,000 refugees...as Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq, has become a safe haven for Christians fleeing the Islamic state.

Lara Logan: This is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world? Thousands of years old.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Two thousand, almost.

Lara Logan: And when you look at it today, where is that Christian community here?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Disappearing. It's dying.

Archbishop Warda said Christians in Iraq ironically felt safer under Saddam Hussein. Democracy brought a new wave of persecution and prompted a mass exodus of Christians. When the U.S. withdrew completely in 2011, Archbishop Warda says the situation became even worse because Iraq's new leaders were incapable of governing without help.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: I think American support was needed, needed forcefully. You cannot leave the country like this and tell them, "Well, we've liberated you. We cannot do the job for you and we are walking away. This is your country, rule it."

Lara Logan: So, in your view walking away in 2011 was just as damaging to Iraq as 2003 when the U.S. invaded?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yes. It's not blaming, but that's the reality. This is not what you came for in 2003. The 4,000 sacrifices of the American soldiers was not meant to come to this day.

Christianity in Iraq was born in the towns and villages of the Nineveh Plains, like this one, called Tel Isqof, which lies less than 20 miles north of Mosul.

Christians have lived here and walked these streets for over a thousand years. But today, there's no one - they're all gone. Driven out by fear. And one of the most striking things you notice is the silence.

Every road was deserted. Houses and possessions abandoned. Others destroyed. Tel Isqof had always been a refuge for Iraq's Christians, until last August when ISIS moved in and 7,000 Christians fled. Three weeks later, Kurdish soldiers pushed the terrorists out.

But Father Rony Hana says ISIS instilled such fear here that his people won't come back. He worries, too, but returns for a few hours every morning to check on his church, which he said ISIS fighters used as their base. He told us one of them called him on his cell phone to ask how to operate the church generator.

Lara Logan: They really did, they asked you that? And you told them?

"I guided them to where it was located around the corner from here," he told us, "and explained how to turn it on. The last thing I said was to please take care of the church and they just hung up."

The cleansing of Iraq's Christians from this land is something Archbishop Sharaf believes ought to be generating a much louder cry of outrage from his Muslim friends and neighbors.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: Speak up. Of course, there is good people of the Islam people. There is not all Muslim people they are bad. I believe. But there is the good people? Where is their voice? Nothing. Few. Few.

Lara Logan: With everything that has happened here to the Christians, what has been lost?

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: They lost our dignity here. I'm sorry to say that. We don't have dignity in our country, in our land.

Most everyone we met welcomed U.S.-led airstrikes here, but they also said it is not nearly enough. Taking back Mosul - a city of about 1.5 million people -- is widely understood to be a difficult prospect. Archbishop Warda believes the Iraqi army can't do it alone and as long as the city remains in the hands of ISIS - who he refers to as Da'esh, its Arabic name -- no Christians will be going home.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: For me, Da'esh is a cancer. It's a disease. So sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures to deal and to treat this cancer.

Lara Logan: So you want to see a major military offensive to retake Mosul?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yea, to get Iraq to its normal situation.

Lara Logan: And by getting Iraq to its normal situation, you mean restoring the border between Iraq and Syria?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yes.

Lara Logan: Getting rid of Da'esh, the Islamic State?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Exactly.

Lara Logan: Defeating them militarily?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Please God.

The Christian community hastily set up militias to guard their deserted villages and homes along the frontline, and they're getting a little help. We were surprised to come across American Brett Felton, a Christian veteran of the Iraq war, who traveled -- on his own -- from Detroit to train Christian volunteers. And this man, Khamis, who said he came from Australia, driven to defend the land where he was born.

Lara Logan: What do you think the Islamic State intends to do with the Christians here?

Khamis: To wipe them out. To be nothing. No place left that bears the name of Christian or Christianity.

Christians in the frontier town of al Qosh live in the shadow of the Islamic State. Under constant threat, the militiamen keep watch as they celebrate their faith ... and carry out traditions that are as old as Christianity on the Nineveh Plains.

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The following article, “Christians return after ISIS driven out of Iraq's Nineveh Plain” was published by Fox News on August 22, 2017 (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/08/22/christians-return-after-isis-driven-out-iraqs-nineveh-plain.html):

Two summers ago, the Nineveh Plain lay in ruin, divided by a trench that stretched hundreds of miles across Northern Iraq, through the heartland of what remained of Christianity in Mesopotamia. Telskuf, a once-thriving Christian town, survived two assaults and brief occupations by ISIS. But ISIS had been driven back toward Mosul.

ISIS had come to wage a war of systematic annihilation against the Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities, whose very existence was a threat to the universal jihad. The soldiers of the caliphate wrote as much on the walls of the churches. Most of the Christians had escaped, but not all. From the trenches of Telskuf, one could look to the south toward another Christian village, Batnaya, and only imagine the destruction.

Today, the Nineveh Plain has been liberated from ISIS. Christians are returning to Telskuf and there is hope, though much reconstructive assistance is still needed.

In Batnaya, however, ISIS left the unmistakable mark of the Caliphate: barbarism and desolation. It is, for now, uninhabitable.

In 2015, I stood in a Christian home in Telksuf that served as a temporary ISIS headquarters before it was leveled by a coalition airstrike that killed several members. Today, standing in another Christian home in Telskuf, there is none of the haunted silence. Nadok, a middle-aged Christian man and leader in his community, bears none of the signs of a genocide victim. He has the gregarious nature of a politician, but the intensity of a soldier—he’s both.

ISIS smashed his family’s statues of Jesus and Mary, shot his dog, and destroyed his bottles of liquor. Today, the statues and images of Jesus and Mary (and the liquor) have been replaced. Nadok knows that the men who stood in his home are either dead or being hunted down and killed. He and other Christians have returned. He was the first to return to Telskuf and among the first to return to the Nineveh Plain, but will not be the last.

Upon entering his home, which he did when Telskuf was still the front lines, Nadok found that ISIS had left some fresh food behind. Laughing, he recalls, “I phoned friends to tell them to come back and enjoy some Daesh food. They didn’t come.” One senses that the demystification of ISIS is cathartic for this community. But this community knows that they may return one day—and are determined to have security. “We are all grateful to the Peshmerga who liberated our towns, especially those who died for us.”

During much of the ISIS occupation of the Nineveh Plain, Nadok was a soldier. On May 3, 2016, just a few months before Peshmerga liberated the Nineveh Plain, ISIS broke through the lines and, once again, briefly occupied Telskuf. In the end, more than one hundred ISIS fighters were confirmed killed. Sixteen Pehsmerga were also killed and a Navy Seal, Charles Keating IV. Every Christian in this village knows his name.

Nadok, who fought that day, recalls the battle. “Keating was killed by a sniper before the airstrikes.” Nadok shows me where Keating and the Seals were fighting. “We saw the courage of the Navy Seals that day. They came quickly from Barqofa (a neighboring Christian village) when they heard that ISIS had breached the line in Telskuf. They rushed in and held the line by themselves for about ninety minutes. Then the order came to withdraw. ISIS occupied and there was an airstrike. Then the Peshmerga moved back in.”

The Peshmerga are gone today, except for a token force. He shows me the photo of his foot on the head of a Deash soldier killed in the May 3 battle. “I’m sorry to show you this. Hopefully it will comfort the mothers of victims.” Charles Keating will not soon be forgotten in Telskuf.

Two years ago, Telskuf was lifeless town with overgrown brush. On this day, there was a flurry of activity. In the town center, a private Canadian charity delivers aid—food, water, generators, air conditioning units. The Christians, like their Yazidi neighbors, desperately need immediate reconstructive aid, which has been slow to arrive, when it arrives at all. But there is a defiance about the Christians: ISIS will not have the last word in this village. They are rebuilding.

The church of Saint George in Telskuf is filled with workers rebuilding what ISIS destroyed. “They’d used the statutes of Jesus and Mary for target practice. The altar was also destroyed. Daesh knew that the West would be reluctant to bomb a church, so stored food and ammunition here,” says one man from the town. Throughout the church, much of the ISIS graffiti has been removed. The altar is being restored. “To see our Christian symbols again is almost as important as food for us,” says another.

Many families have also begun to return to other villages on the Nineveh Plain. “Thank God we don’t have it as bad in Telskuf as they do in Batnaya” says Nadok. “We’ve opened our doors to them, just as Al Qosh (a Christian city to the north) opened their doors for us when Daesh came.” A Dominican nun on the streets of Ainkhawa, the heavily Christian city north of the Kurdish capital, Erbil, told me days before that she was from Batnaya. It was as if she was saying the name of a deceased loved one.

The destruction in Batnaya is not as devastating as Mosul, but it’s closer than one would’ve imagined. The historic village's walls are filled with caliphate graffiti: “There is no place for the Cross in Islamic lands”; “O Allah, give us martyrdom”; “Office of the mujahedeen”; “Lions of the Caliphate”; “The Cross is under our foot.” Everywhere are the names of ISIS “martyrs.” On the door of the parish priest’s home, “The house of Kafir (infidel).” Across the street, a house for nuns has been destroyed.

Inside the homes on the way toward the church, one sees the Spartan-like discipline of ISIS, so uncharacteristic for organized militaries in the region, the single-minded focus. They slept on floors even when beds were available. They tunneled and trained by day, slept or attacked by night. Only blankets, bullet-filled statues, and graffiti with the nom de guerre of fallen comrades remain. “Daesh are like ghosts,” says one of the Christians, echoing a sentiment heard from Iraq to Syria.

Inside the church, Saint Kyriakos, there are shot up statues of Jesus and Mary. Across Iraq and Syria, there is writing in Arabic, Russian, French—marks of the universality of the Caliphate. In Saint Kyriakos, there is German. “Oh you Cross worshippers, we’ll kill you all. Germany is an Islamic land. You are weak and don’t belong here.” And: “Oh you Cross worshippers, you have no place in Islamic lands. Either you leave or we’ll kill you.”

ISIS appears to have taken their dead with them. But in the two-year occupation, the graves in the Christian cemetery were desecrated. “ISIS couldn’t have done this by themselves,” says one local Christian leader. “Many locals came from towns nearby when ISIS came to loot and to destroy. ISIS destroyed where their faith required it but they didn’t loot. Locals from the neighboring village took part in the destruction as well. This is what we believe.” The Christians here are open to reconciliation with neighbors—but will trust only their own police and defense forces. “Our own neighbors turned on us overnight. We won’t let that happen again.”

The ISIS assault against minorities is part of a wider Islamist campaign to subjugate or simply eradicate religious minorities in the region. The State Department (begrudgingly) acknowledged last year that this systematic pattern, which included slavery, rape, and murder, constituted genocide, confirming what Congress had found unanimously the week before. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently clarified the U.S. government's position, following omissions of the term earlier this year in country reports for 2016 on Iraq and Syria. One U.S. official last year voiced concern about Iraqi Christians seeking revenge against Sunni Arabs in a private meeting -- a fear without any basis in reality or history.

There is no talk of reprisals by Christians. They simply want to provide for their own security—to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. How less forgiving Americans would be, I thought, listening to these Christians. It is precisely the Christian tendency to reconcile, to forgive, that makes them vulnerable to exploitation, to absurd lectures from an American official not to exact revenge on their neighbors.

Later that day, Christian leaders in Dohuk ask candidly whether the Trump Administration will help them. After years of neglect from the Bush and Obama administrations, the Christians of the region went all-in for Trump and remain unabashed supporters. Middle East Christians in America overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, particularly in key swing states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. They are growing concerned that they may once again become an afterthought—but they haven’t lost hope.

“We believe in God first, Trump second,” says one of the Christian leaders in Dohuh. “You hear it said often here. You see, we are caught between Arabs and Kurds, between Sunni and Shia, between Turkey and Iran. Without a province, doomed.”

The future of the Nineveh Plain will be decided as much in Washington as it is in Northern Iraq. To the extent that Christians have a voice in their own future, they will likely opt for the creation of a province, perhaps with a path toward an autonomous zone, like that which was created to protect Iraq’s Kurds in 1991. On September 25, Iraq’s Kurds will vote in a referendum on independence.

Iraq’s Christians don’t ask for continuous aid or for any special status. “We seek only equal rights and the ability to protect ourselves,” says one community leader. “We can provide for our own defense and build our own economy.” After the 2003 invasion, America made no special accommodation for the Christians. In 2014, no military action was taken to stop the ISIS conquest of Christian Nineveh, though it could’ve been done easily—and prevented genocide. The Trump Administration is now the last, best hope for Christianity in Iraq. The Christians there watch and wait.

*******

Jesus says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” He said churches – Plural. So, what applies to this church, applies to all churches. Our life does not reside in ourselves; it all resides in Jesus Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ – IN CHRIST – he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

What we do here has a severe impact on what happens elsewhere in the world. More REAL Christians are needed here. Hopefully, when REAL Christians are in positions of authority, they will not abandon their first love. They will NOT abandon Christians in other parts of the world for the ideas of cheap oil and political correctness.

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