This one hit me hard. Milad Malak, a 20-year-old Coptic deacon from a village in Egypt’s Gharbia governorate, went to Libya in September to work and help his family. ISIS fighters grabbed him and his two Muslim friends in Zliten on Oct. 4. The friends were ransomed and released. Milad was the only Christian, so they kept him.
For days they tortured him and demanded he deny Jesus and convert. According to International Christian Concern, he told them: “Even if you cut me into pieces, I would never renounce my faith.” He was killed, and his body came home weeks later. Family and friends gathered on Oct. 28 to honor him.
Same beach, same faith
Open Doors and ICC both tie this to 2015, when ISIS filmed the beheading of 20 Coptic laborers and a Ghanaian man, Matthew Ayariga, on a Libyan beach. Those men died saying the name of Jesus. Eleven years later, another young Copt made the same choice.
My take
We argue about worship styles while a 20-year-old deacon chose Christ over his own life. That’s the real thing. “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Revelation 12:11). Pray for his family in Sebarbay, for the two friends recovering in the hospital, and for the believers still in Libya, No. 9 on the World Watch List. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you that same boldness in the small stuff this week.
God Bless, and May the Source Be with You!
