How Should Christians Respond When Their Families and Communities Are Under Persistent Physical Terrorist Attack?
1) Direct Answer
Christians must stand without hatred. Pray, watch, and act wisely. Do not take vengeance. Protect innocent life committed to your care, cooperate with rightful authority, be ready to flee if needed, and keep a clean testimony—loving enemies while refusing evil.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Pray and trust: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble” (Psalm 50:15). The church prayed under threat and God answered (Acts 12:5). We are told to pray for all in authority “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
- No private revenge: “Avenge not yourselves… overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19-21). Jesus said love your enemies and pray for them (Matthew 5:44).
- Lawful protection and order: God ordains civil authority as “a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:1-4). We may work with rightful authorities for the safety of our families and neighbors.
- Guard and build: Under persistent attack, God’s people watched, prayed, and secured their families while continuing the work (Nehemiah 4:7-18). “They which builded… every one had his sword girded.” They did not launch vengeance; they guarded and kept building.
- Flee if necessary: “When they persecute you in this city, flee into another” (Matthew 10:23). Paul escaped plots rather than answer violence with violence (Acts 9:23-25).
- Spiritual warfare first: “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Corinthians 10:4). Put on the whole armor of God—truth, righteousness, faith, the Word, prayer (Ephesians 6:10-18).
- Wisdom and prudence: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself” (Proverbs 22:3). Joseph prepared in advance to preserve life (Genesis 41).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Personal insult? Turn the other cheek. Immediate threat to innocent life? Love protects. Restraining or stopping an attacker to prevent murder is not vengeance; it is stewardship of the lives God placed under your care. But the heart must stay free of hatred and bloodlust; judgment belongs to God and to lawful authority, not to private revenge.
- Those who say “retaliate and repay” contradict Jesus and Romans 12—no private vengeance.
- Those who say “never defend” overlook Nehemiah’s watchfulness and the duty of love to shield the weak. Love does no harm, and love also prevents harm to those entrusted to you.
- If staying means certain ruin for your family, Scripture gives liberty to flee. If staying is required, stand watchfully, pray fervently, and keep your spirit clean.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, the Bible’s path is narrow but clear: pray much, keep your heart right, cooperate with rightful authority, protect life without revenge, be ready to flee, and overcome evil with good while trusting God to fight for you.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 5:E-101
Now this is not merely an assumption but an historical fact which we will prove by going back into history to about 36 A.D. and coming up to the Nicene Council of 325. When the Christians (mainly Jews by birth) were scattered abroad from Jerusalem they went everywhere preaching the Gospel, particularly in the synagogues. Thus within three years, or about in 36 A.D. the Gospel had been taken to Rome by Junius and Andronicus, who according to Romans 16:7 were apostles. The work flourished there for several years unti...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-60
The Complaint Of God Revelation 2:4, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." To understand this you must realize that the Spirit is not speaking to the original saints of Ephesus alone. This message is to the entire age which lasted about 120 years. Its message, then, is to all the generations in that span. Now history keeps repeating itself. In the generations of Israel we see revival in one generation, only to see the fires fading in the next. In the third generation, e...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 10:E-22
With a state and church union the stage has been set for the Dark Ages. And indeed for about 1000 years the church went into the depth of blackness, knowing the depths of Satan. When any religious people embrace both Nicolaitanism and Balaamism, and have the political, financial and physical power to back it up there is only one direction they can go. That direction is right into the Jezebel doctrine. Now why do we say this? Because as we pointed out in the study of the fourth age that Jezebel was a Sidonian, the d...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 6:E-13
Though the messenger to the Thyatirean Age was Saint Columba, I want to dwell a little on the life of Saint Patrick as an example to us and also to give the lie to Rome's claim that Saint Patrick was any more one of her than was Joan of Arc. Patrick was born to the sister of Saint Martin in the little town of Bonavern on the banks of the river Clyde. One day while playing on the shoreline with his two sisters, pirates approached and kidnapped all three. Where the sisters went, no one knows, but Patrick (his name wa...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-23
Here is where you have to believe again in the love, and goodness and wisdom of God. This, too, is needful. Remember He admonished, "Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye shall put on. Your Father knoweth the things ye have need of. He Who clothes the lily and feeds the sparrow shall do much more for you. These physical things are not the true basic necessities of your life, for a man's life consisteth not of the things he possesses. But rather seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteo...