Thy Kingdom Come!

“A girl thought to be as young as seven killed herself and five others in a suicide bombing in north-east Nigeria on Sunday as the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, conceded that his government had underrated the capacity of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. The attack on a market in the town of Potiskum is the latest in a string of suicide strikes in which children have been used” (The Guardian, February 22, 2015). Tragically, more than 13,000 people have been killed and more than a million left homeless since 2009 due to the actions of extremists trying to create an Islamic state (ibid.). 

The saddening and shocking aspect about killings in Nigeria is that warlords are using young innocent children to spread their carnage. These modern atrocities resemble practices that God condemned in ancient pagan nations—causing their children to “pass through the fire to Molech”—a pagan god (Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 16:1-3).

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him how to pray, He told them to pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10, KJV). As we see the suffering caused by the Satan-inspired actions of people, we should be motivated to pray that same prayer.

To learn more about God’s coming kingdom, read The World Ahead: What Will It Be Like?