They Cry in Silence Sep/Oct 2011
Run! run! as fast as you can! You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!”
So taunts the little gingerbread boy in a well-known children’s story. The arrogant little guy manages to evade everyone who wants to eat him until he meets a sly fox who knows how to get what he wants. The fox denies all interest in devouring the gingerbread man and cordially offers to carry him across the river. So they team up.
America today seems much like the gingerbread man, naively jumping on the tail of a fox and ignoring the danger.
In July, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initiated overtures to the same Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that in 2007 told journalist Christiane Amanpour it fully expects to institute Islamic Sharia law worldwide someday. Meanwhile, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is laying the groundwork to lobby for free-speech restrictions to stem what it claims is a growing Islamophobia in America. (See jihadwatch.org.)
Yet in the non-Islamophobic country of Iran, where Sharia law is applied, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, 34, awaits execution for apostasy (leaving Islam for Christianity) and evangelism. Although his death sentence reportedly was annulled, the terms of the annulment require him to recant his faith or die.
Various news reports all say Youcef has pastored in a network of house churches for the past 10 years. He is married with two sons, ages 9 and 7. A few years ago the government decided all schoolchildren, even Christians, should be taught Islam. Reports say Youcef went to his sons’ school and protested based on the Iranian Constitution that is supposed to allow religious freedom. He was arrested and imprisoned with murderers and other felons.
Authorities tried to force him back to Islam, even giving him drugs; but he remained faithful to Christ. So they arrested his wife. She was tried and sentenced to life in prison but was later released.
Present Truth Ministries has stayed close to the situation. The Present Truth Ministries website says Youcef “will be given another chance to recant and then he will be executed. Currently, there is nothing that can be done within the legal system of Iran. He could be executed at any time. This is the way that the Iranian government operates with executions. They do not give advance notice and it is done in secret.” Present Truth Ministries urges people to contact their elected officials and “fast and pray for his deliverance.”
In 2010 Oklahoma voted to forbid state courts from using Sharia law. CAIR won a permanent injunction to nullify the vote.
The prophet Jeremiah warned about those who say, “‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). Soothing words deceive the prey.
The fox used soothing words, but the gingerbread man should have been more careful. First he jumped on the fox’s tail, then his back. Eventually he let himself be cajoled into moving closer to the fox’s mouth:
The minute the fox got on shore he threw back his head with a snap! “Dear me!” said the little Gingerbread Man, “I am a quarter gone!” The next minute he said, “Why, I am half gone!” The next minute he said, “My goodness gracious, I am three quarters gone!”
And after that, the little Gingerbread Man never said anything more at all.
Perhaps it’s time to call a fox a fox.
