Christians from any place in the world can get along. We may not all dot our “i’s” and cross our “t’s” like each other, but for the most part we can and should get along. In my limited experience of traveling I have anecdotal evidence to this truth. Whether in the Caribbean, Mexico, or the Middle East, I have met other believers who have brought me joy because of our shared love for Jesus. As Christians, we are biblically bound to love one another no matter the nationality, ethnicity, or race of the other brother or sister in Christ. It is one of the proofs that our salvation is genuine. If we don’t love the brethren, we aren’t truly born-again. Check out a passage in I John 3:14-17.
Within the past two months I have found myself praying for my brothers and sisters in places such as Iran and Israel quite a bit more than usual. Why? Perhaps and hopefully, it is the nudging of the Holy Spirit or possibly the reports about the growing Iranian underground church I have been reading and hearing about. According to at least two sources in the past month, the young men of Iran are turning their backs on Islam in numbers, almost beyond understanding from a secular point of view. In 2025, as much as 26% of the young men in Iran have rejected Islam. They are rejecting the irrational and demonic religion they were born into. In 2000, less than a-half of 1%. The gospel is making inroads in certain middle eastern countries as well as Africa. Those people are our fellow Christians. War is brutal and to be straight up honest, I don’t know how to tell the good people in Iran from the bad. The only way I can distinguish is by seeing and listening to those that make the news. Those are usually old “weird beards” claiming to speak for all the people. I couldn’t identify my fellow believers, but God can! I want the whole of the people of ancient Persia to know that if they will come to Christ and accept the Gospel of Christ, their lives and most importantly their eternal lives will be joyous. How do I know that? Changed lives are always the result of Christ entering in a man or woman’s heart. It has also been my experience. The same type of thing is happening in Israel.
Thirteen years ago, was my first trip to Israel. I didn’t know a single person on the tour. The man that had invited me to go on the trip, a dear friend from Texas, had a sudden death in his family and had to return to the states. So, I was left all alone in a foreign land with people I’d never met. My eyes were opened in ways they had never been opened before. During that 10-day trip, most nights there would be Messianic-Jews that would come to the hotel for fellowship. Their music and instruments were different, but the Lord they sang about was the same Lord I serve. Since the first trip, and each time since, I made the observation that most of these Jewish-Christians were young people under 40 years-old. The younger generation of Israelis are much more open to the gospel of Christ than their predecessors. Over the course of about a week, I met over 50 people that were Jewish-Christians, most under 40 years-old.
Jesus makes a difference! This Lord’s Day I plan to preach on “Fellowship.” It is more than just a pot luck supper. What about the story I promised? In the first half of the 20th century, Germany was the villain on the face of the earth. We fought them in two world wars. However, there were Christians on both sides. Sometimes governments conscript their citizens into causes the people would rather not participate, but they do. I wrote this story back in 2019. I’ll share it again now because of the theme of this Friday Blast.
“The Christmas Carol that Stopped a War!” Do you know which one? It took place well over 100 years ago during WWI. America had not yet entered the war. Christmas Eve, 1914, British and German soldiers were fighting on the Western Front. Each army would fight from trenches and it was dangerous to raise even a hand above the ditch you were in because of snipers. That Christmas Eve the moon was bright and snow blanketed the ground. No man’s land was the area between the two armies and the distance separating at certain spots would be less than 100 yards. The shooting had stopped and, in the quietness, a German voice was heard singing. Then troops from both sides would sing from their hunkered down positions. An English soldier, named Graham Williams, shared the following. “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing ¬– two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” In the past, accounts of this story have been published by Time Magazine and the Washington Post. After the night of listening to each other sing carols and then singing together in their respective language, English and German, the next morning a few German Soldiers stepped up from their trenches walking toward the English saying in English “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, you no shoot, you no shoot.” The account from various sources claims that at this moment soldiers from both sides stepped out of their foxholes and ditches to meet each other. For one short period of time, the fighting on the Western Front had a lull. This gave each side time to bury their dead, some of which had been laying in the snow for weeks. Stories emerged from diaries of those men. One claimed there was a “meal of roasted pig among some of the soldiers and that the men played soccer with a makeshift soccer ball.” A quote from the Washington Post, “Souvenirs were exchanged — cigars, cigarettes, belt buckles, uniform buttons, tins of bully beef and jam…A German barber who had worked in Britain clipped the hair of a former customer.” What was the carol that stopped a war? “Silent Night.”
Pray for our brothers and sisters around the world. They don’t have it as cushy as we do in America. A final question. What will God’s people look like in eternity? Revelation 7:9-10, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues (languages), stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”