The echoes of 1^st century Christian persecution are growing louder and louder in the 21^st century. Jesus said that Christian persecution would be a sign of the end-time. From Pakistan to America, Christ’s Prophecy of Christian Persecution is coming to pass.

The prophecy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 24 says, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

In Pakistan, Christians were attacked. A suicide bomber stood next to the children’s rides in a park and blew himself up, killing at last count 70 people and injuring 300, most of them Christians, most of them women and children.

The Islamist group that claimed responsibility for the bombing issued a statement saying their target had been Christians celebrating Easter. It’s reported that last year, they had also killed 15 and injured 70 in an attack on two churches in a predominantly Christian neighborhood in Lahore.

Eyewitnesses at the park said that when the blast occurred, the flames were so high they reached above the trees and they saw bodies flying in the air. Then they saw body parts strewn across the parking lot once the dust had settled after the blast. Reports had shown children and women standing in pools of blood outside the park, crying and screaming.

Much of the media reported it as another terrorist attack, and said nothing of the truth that it targeted Christians. But it’s the same as when Islamist terrorists showed a video of 21 Egyptian Christians they marched on a Mediterranean beach in Libya, and then beheaded them while declaring death to the believers of the Cross.

It’s mostly not reported in the media but there are Pakistani Christians on death row for blasphemy against Islam. Islamist Pakistan methodically uses its blasphemy laws and courts to persecute and kill Christians for their faith – today. Christians are routinely discriminated against and marginalized by the Islamist majority.

Now in the U.S., the laws and the courts are used to attack Christians for their sincere beliefs that are explicitly stated in the Bible. A Christian clerk was put in prison for not signing marriage certificates that violated her Christian faith. A cake baker was charged and threatened for not wanting to participate in an event that violated their Christian faith. And on it goes, to where in the military, government, and schools, there is a systematic effort in secular America to expunge Christian beliefs.

And now any time a law is proposed that would protect Christians and their faith (such as recently in Georgia where there is a religious liberty bill designed to protect the right of Christians to conduct their business and life in a manner consistent with their faith and not have to fear prison), it is labeled by Hollywood and professional sports as an anti-rights law, and they make financial threats against the state if they pass the law.

Since when did Hollywood and professional sports with the power of the dollar determine America’s laws. Is it now a hollow statement that America is a Nation under God and that in God we trust?

America’s first schools started in our churches, our first textbook was the Holy Bible, our first act of the day was prayer, and we learned our laws and behaviors from the Word of God. As a country we grew strong and exalted by God for this.

Now the same country’s court system has decided that Christian prayer and Bible cannot be in school, that babies given life by God can be killed in the mother’s womb, and that after God established the nature of marriage and family structure which mankind has adhered to for many millenniums that now they will change it according to their own desires.

In a similar way to Pakistan, now also in America, the Christians are routinely becoming discriminated against and marginalized by the secular majority. That same attitude of intolerance for Christians in the 1^st century Roman Empire, that persecuted early Christians before is rising again today for prophetic fulfillment in a Revived Roman Empire with anti-christ attitudes. The Prophecy of Jesus Christ is coming to pass. Those who love our dear Savior are lifting up their heads, as our redemption draws nearer.