Persecution Is Coming; Are You Ready?
Word-of-the-Day: ‘The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?’ (Psalm 118:6)
Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo, of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, was recently had his life threatened in a letter he received from the Fulani Militia, an Islamic fundamentalist group that has been slaughtering Christians in the southwestern-central African nation, along with the al-Qaeda aligned Boko Haram Islamist terrorist organization and the ISIS splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province, after they murdered nine of his relatives in a horrifying attack against him for being the voice for the Nigerian Christians who have been heavily persecuted in their homeland.
Reports on the persecution in Nigeria indicate from 2019 through 2025, almost eighty-thousand (80,000) Christians have been killed by these three Islamic groups, with the Fulani militia the most brutal – an average of thirty-six people a day over the six-year period. Reverend Dachomo, despite his own personal loss of friends and family, continues to speak out about the atrocities publicly and openly petitions the Nigerian government and world leaders, including President Trump, to act to stop the persecution.
Persecutions such as that occurring in Nigeria are nothing new and have happened since the birth of Jesus in 4 B.C., when King Herod, fearing a child Messiah would overthrow him, demanded that all newborn males be killed in the region around Bethlehem, in part due to the report of the Magi from the east (likely from Babylon or Persia) seeking the Messiah after the astrological signs indicated His birth to them. Jesus escaped this persecution, but as prophecy was fulfilled, He was eventually captured by the Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious and societal leaders) and crucified.
Since then, Christians have been arrested, tortured, or killed for practicing their Faith. Battles between Christians and Islamists have battled across the centuries, in the Middle East, Jerusalem, Africa, and in Europe (both in the Balkan region of Eastern Europe and on the Iberian Peninsula of Portugal and Spain). This animosity has not ended; though the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are ‘Western-friendly’ and tolerate Christian visitors, they and other Middle Eastern countries are very hostile when it comes to their own people seeking Jesus, many times arresting them for the crimes of illegally gathering, or performing acts of evangelism in Jesus’ name.
In other parts of the world, Christians are often harassed, attacked, or killed for their exercising their Faith. According to Global Christian Relief, 388 million Believers face persecution daily, with almost 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith so far in 2026, and 225,000 forced out of their homes to become refugees, and another 67,843 Christians were physically or mentally abused for the simple act of worshipping Jesus.
Can this happen in the United States? In a one-year period from March 2025 through February 2026, over thirty incidents ranging from worship service disruptions to shootings and arson in American churches occurred. Especially troubling is the sudden rise of churches destroyed by fire within Muslim-run cities, including New York City, where a 150-year-old Reformist church was burnt but was deemed restorable; yet the city building executive, a Muslim, denied the congregants permission to rebuild the church and ordered it torn down. Many other factions, such as gay and transgender militant groups, and other leftist/socialist groups, are also waging a low-level form of warfare against the Christian churches but may escalate quickly.
We can take one of two paths; one that involves cowering in fear and denying our expression of Faith, or one where we stand with courage and proudly proclaim our allegiance to God. Reverend Dachomo, despite the great loss of family members and fellow Christians, recently wrote an ‘X’ post where he uses Psalm 118:6 as his foundational verse to give his answer, “Many people have asked me if I am afraid. My answer is no; I am not afraid because my life is in the hands of Almighty God.”
Even though he notes that he knows ‘what it means to bury those I love’, ‘what it means to wipe the tears of children who watched their parents murdered’, and ‘what it means to stand before grieving families whose only crime was refusing to deny Jesus Christ’, he also understands that our mortality, and the mortality of his own life and those of his friends, family, and congregants is temporary, and the physical suffering is finite, to the point of our physical death. But beyond that comes, with Faith, our eternal life secured in the presence of the Lord, forever.
I am thankful I’m now a senior citizen, blessed that I may not be alive when a full-scale persecution of the church occurs in the US. However, we understand through the trials and tribulations recorded in Revelation that it will indeed be coming. Now, even though it may not occur in our lifetime, is to prepare so that future generations can be prepared when persecution hits, as the persecution may begin long before the Tribulation occurs – as it is already happening in Nigeria and other parts of the world. Engage in fellowship outside of the church building, in prayer, Bible study, and social activities. Don’t be afraid to speak up and speak out for the cause of Christ when out in public, and share the Word with your neighbors – those who are around you at any time, in any situation.
I pray for Reverend Dachomo and his strength and courage to remain strong in the Lord, and I pray we are also strong and courageous to stand upon the foundation of the Lord and His Gospel, to be unafraid to speak up and speak out in defense of the Word and His gift of Salvation, whether today in the comfort of freedom or in the confines of persecution.
