Martyrs or Murderers?

On September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked and sent to plow through buildings. Three of them hit their targets; the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon Building in the nation's capital. They killed everyone on board and numerous others. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.


The perpetrators of these acts were Muslim extremists that other Muslims called martyrs in what amounted to a declaration of war on Western Civilization. In many places in the Middle East, there were celebrations of the feat. A blow had been delivered to the "Great Satan," the United States of America. Of course, the impact of what they did has been felt world-wide, and has created wars in two countries, and has made other "martyrs" bold to kill thousands of people in other lands not having declared war. Suicide bombings are now a daily occurrence.


But are the Islamic suicide bombers actually martyrs as they are claimed to be, or are they murderers, plain and simple? The answer is obvious.


What is a martyr? The word comes from the Greek, marturios, which means "witness." It has come to mean a witness for a religious faith, especially one who is willing to suffer or die for it.


Yes, I will grant the obvious fact that suicide bombers are dying for Islam every day. But I have a real problem calling them "martyrs" in the same sense that Christians are martyrs. When a Christian martyr dies for his or her faith, he or she does not try to take other people with them in their suffering. Their object is to see people saved and kept from going to Hell. In contrast, the suicide bomber seems to delight in sending others to Hell by killing them. It would never occur to a Christian who believes the Bible to keep people out of Hell by killing them and sending them there!


Christian martyrs, if given a chance, testify to their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ verbally, as well as suffer and die for their faith. Martyrs throughout the history of the church could be pointed to, but one will show clearly what is meant. The Apostle Paul, in II Corinthians 11:23-28, gives some idea of what he went through as a martyr (witness of Christ) before he died as a martyr. "Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more: in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches."


Paul lived a true martyrdom daily. Pain was his constant companion. Thinking about all the travelling, and the catalogue he gives of things which happened to him in his travels for Christ, only shows the power of God in sustaining him. He was in three shipwrecks, he was stoned once and left for dead, and in prison many times. He was whipped at least eight times, and these were not like the spankings a naughty child would get. These lashings were excruciatingly painful and left slashes on his back he would have the rest of his life. This may be part of what he meant when he said in Galatians 6:17, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." His life on earth ended in true martyrdom when he was beheaded for his faith in Rome. This is martyrdom unequalled by almost no one else. He was truly "crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20).


What about the suicide bombers? While there have been true martyrs for Islam, men and women who gave their lives for their beliefs in the way Christians suffered for Christ, suicide bombers are far short of this.


Many of the suicide bombers are to be pitied. They are impressionable children who have been influenced by Muslim leaders into thinking they are doing right. Their religious leaders want power and are willing to use anyone they can to help them conquer the world for their religion, and thus gain power for themselves. So these cowardly hypocrites will send young people up in airplanes to do their dirty work for them.


It is the leaders who should be condemned, and will come the Day of Judgment. Their cowardice and hypocrisy will stand condemned before the whole world when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to judge the people of the earth. They will be in the very Hell they condemned others to by their inciting suicide bombers to commit murder for them.


Suicide bombing is not martyrdom, but murder. Those who will be judged most severely for the murders will not be the suicide bombers themselves, but the Imams who preached and put murder in their hearts. Jesus is a just judge, and He will put these leaders in one of the hottest places in Hell there is, probably very close to Mohammed himself.



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