Let's get our heads together!

Here's another "little" hint to a Islamic future.

When I was in my twenties our church did a lot of outreach. One of the things we enjoyed was showing films on Bible prophecy. In those days you could not go online (there was no "online") to find any of hundreds of titles, then download them. There were only a few available, usually done by some company like, "Gospel Films", or some such name. They all looked pretty much the same (unless you got lucky and Billy Graham had just made a new flick). Lots of atomic explosions, fiery red sunsets, people running down streets, and universally bad acting.

One scene that was always the same, no matter which film it was, was the depiction of the death of Christian martyrs in the tribulation period. This was derived from Revelation 20 verse 4.

"Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years."

Beheaded?!? Interestingly enough, the manner of death in these old prophetic films was always a guillotine! You know, one of those head choppers with a slanted blade used by the French in the old days. Why? Well, the guillotine was a product of advanced Western civilization. Perhaps it was the ultimate in efficient, cold-blooded dispatching of the unwanted masses. And since post-WW2 people were undoubtedly making these movies... a black-booted Nazi pulling a guillotine handle was the ultimate horror of execution. I always thought it was weird. A guillotine?! It was hard enough to imagine that beheading people was going to be fashionable in the last days. Surely, a more modern piece of equipment would be used!

But, how could I have known that this particular form of execution would return as a form of capital punishment! And that it would come from a culture that revels in using the old instruments of death!