Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, on this 25th anniversary of 9-11, what have we learned about Islam and its intentions? Islam and its intentions. What have we learned as Americans after this national tragedy, this horrific aggression from the religion of peace?

Oh, what have we learned? For example, New York City, the very scene of this vicious act of conquest, which is really what it was, they have recently elected a Muslim mayor who recently prayed at a local mosque, death to the infidels. Oh, how sweet. What have we learned? Michigan has a Democrat running now for the Senate, Abdul El Saeed, who thinks that the U.S. deserve 9-11 and he hates Israel.

He loves Hamas and Palestine, right? Now also, most Americans born after 9-11 have no clue as to the horror and destruction of that day and what it tells us about our bitter existential foe, militant Islam. And one thing it does teach us, though, if a regime like the mullahs in Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, oh, they call death to America. That's a regular chant in the streets of Tehran. If they acquire a nuclear weapon, the mullahs in Iran, they will use it first on the little Satan, which is Israel, and then on the second big Satan, that is the United States of America.

Now we know all of this is true because we have a record from not just 9-11, but the long history of Islam versus Christianity. And today I want to deal with perhaps a more obscure aspect of this relationship between Islam and Christianity, and that is Islam in the Balkans. Islam in the Balkans, especially the Ottoman Empire, because the Ottoman Empire had every modern contemporary weapon that existed, and they had it all at their disposal. And they launched a vicious crusade towards Europe through the Balkans. So this is one I want to talk about here today.

Now, if you're reaching back in your memory to recall just where the Balkans are, let me refresh your memory. Now imagine a map of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Balkans, which is Turkish for mountains, is that peninsula in the Mediterranean basin, which includes Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania. It's one of the most mysterious and enigmatic places on earth. The newspaperman C.L. Salzberger calls the Balkans a carefree peninsula filled with sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wear flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily, and had a splendid talent for starting wars.

Oh, what is little appreciated in today's atmosphere of the rise of Muslim fanaticism is that the founder of the great Ottoman Empire, Ottoman I invaded the small city of Gallipoli in Greece. And from there, Islam reached the shores of southern Europe as early as AD 1353. And from here, Islam, as propagated by and through the Ottoman Empire, would stretch from Greece to Hungary and threaten the very gates of Vienna before being turned back. The Ottoman Empire, primarily composed of the Seljuk Turks in Istanbul, and the Anatolian Peninsula.

They would conquer and triumph over everyone and everything in its path and would last well into the 20th century. Now, remember, it is today's, like the days of the Ottoman Empire, that modern-day terrorists look for inspiration when they plan for a new modern Muslim taliphate on the earth. The modern jihadist longs for the power, glory, and wealth that characterized the centuries of domination exercised by the Ottoman sultans to them. Time is no barrier. It's like it happened yesterday.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon anyone who would defend themselves against such aggression to look carefully at how this empire conducted itself. One of the reasons the Ottomans conquered in the Balkans is that they were fiercer than the peoples already there. So, in this regard, I must tell you about the secret weapon of the Ottomans. It was called the dreaded Janissaries. What or who were the Janissaries?

Well, Janissaries is Turkish for new soldiers. They're a new elite fighting force developed and refined by the Turkish sultan Orkan I. As the armies of Allah would come sweeping through a Christian village, slicing and dicing everyone in their path or their scimitar, they would scoop up the young boys of the village alive, killing everyone else. These Christian youth would be severed from their roots and shipped back to Istanbul, where they would be converted to Islam and trained and indoctrinated as the most feared soldier of the age. Such was the fate of thousands of Christian children every year for centuries to come.

They were not permitted to marry. They swore a solemn oath to the sultan and to him alone, and when not fighting, they trained and drilled in the most modern of fighting techniques. They were taught to be utterly fearless and willing to die at any moment for Allah and their sultan. They are compared as equals in every respect to Napoleon's old guard, and in particular Hitler's Waffen-SS, who swore an oath of allegiance not to Germany, but personally to Hitler himself.

As one Serbian captain who had faced a squadron of janissaries and lived, he put it this way, better to face the army of demons from hell than the ranks of the sultan's janissaries. In front of them we stood in rank and order, ready to fight. Behind them, that is the janissaries, they left us nothing but blood, carnage, death, and chaos. So it's no surprise that, as one historian puts it, for the first three centuries of the Ottoman Empire, the janissaries were supreme on every battlefield where they fought, and they made it possible for the Ottomans to terrorize Europe until it seemed that one day all of Christendom would succumb to Islam.

Oh, the Balkan Peninsula, dear listener, became the base of operations for the Muslim Ottomans. At first, Ottoman Turks were only one more people inhabiting the strange, beautiful, violent place I've been, to Romania, and it is a beautiful place in the mountains. But the fierce Ottomans soon foreshadowed why they would dominate these peoples and cast influence far beyond the borders of the Balkans. One of those dawning days in the consciousness of Europe came when a coalition force of armies was raised to capture and destroy the capital city of the Alamans in the west, that is, Gallipoli, and drive them back to Istanbul, ostensibly.

And they were led by the great Serbian King Lazar I. The vast army was composed of Serbians and Malachians and Bosnians and Albanians. Just as today, these people were fighting and killing amongst themselves to see who would reign and rule over the other until they ran up against the new dark-skinned Orientals with their exotic tongue, their new religion and customs. Suddenly, all the petty differences between themselves evaporated in the face of this new threat from the east. The place where the two armies met is legendary even in our own day, Kosovo.

Oh, now if you're a gray hair like me, you may vaguely remember Bill Clinton attempting to intervene in the mutual slaughter of Bosnian and Serb in and around Kosovo in the late 90s. They were fighting for control of the city when General Wesley Clark took over NATO troops and began bombing the Serbian capital, Belgrade, right? Oh, General Pavkovic said about Serbia, Serbia is in Kosovo and Kosovo is in Serbia. Serbian roots are in Kosovo and everything that's connected to the Serbs throughout the past centuries is there. Unquote.

General Pavkovic is right. Everything connected to the Serbs throughout the past centuries is there. The battle between King Lazar I and Sultan Murad I was the seminal event in that long chain of memories. The coalition forces of King Lazar mustered almost 30,000 troops matched by 8,000 to 10,000 of the Adamants. And there on the fields of Kosovo, the two armies clashed.

Back and forth, the battle went all day with the Serbs pushing back the Turks at one moment and the fierce Ottomans, led by the indomitable Janissaries, pushing back the Serbs at another moment. Wow. One brave Serbian, Miloš Kabilović, rode through the Ottoman ranks, feigning his betraying Lazar and his sympathies for Islam. And he was sent promptly to Murad, the first to be debriefed. Now, when Miloš got within striking distance, he pulled out a knife from his cloak and he stabbed Murad to death, getting cut down then himself by the Janissaries in the process.

Well, Kabilović had heard stories of the Muslim assassins, and he saw an opportunity to employ the very same tactic on them that they were fond of visiting on Western leaders. This is the only known instance of anyone assassinating a Muslim prince when guarded by the elite corps of Janissaries. Well, with his dying breath, Murad ordered in his reserve troops into the battle, and this proved to tip the balance in the favor of the Adamants.

At the end of the day, legend has it that King Lazar's nephew, Prince Yukh Bankowich, when he saw the reserve Janissaries entering the fray, suddenly became frightened and fled the battlefield in panic on Kassavu. Seeing one of their own leaders melt down, the rest of the troops collapsed and ran, and they were cut down by the now victorious Ottomans. King Lazar himself was captured, brought before the new sultan, Murad's son, Bajaze, who commanded his head be cut off. In addition, Bajaze ordered all of his brothers to be strangled so that there would be no quarrels as to who would succeed their now dead father.

Finally, enraged at the high losses suffered that day by the Adamants, Bajaze ordered that all of the Christian prisoners be executed there and then in the fields of Kassavu. Well into the night, Muslim executioners would tie the Christian prisoners into groups of three and four and then behead them in bunches. Their arms grew weary as the night progressed, and so they resorted to cutting off hands and feet or slitting throats, which was easier, and let the soldiers bleed to death. Oh, there in the fields of Kassavu, over 30,000 men died in desperate battle in one day.

On still evenings, it's said, the cries of men can still be heard, and apparitions stalked the woods in the tall grass. The place is known as the field of blackbirds. Since the very next day and for days afterwards, huge black ravens feasted off the corpses there. Oh, dear listener, this is the legend and the battle of Kassavu. It's fresh in the minds of every Serbian since.

It might as well have happened yesterday to them. It has shaped Serbian character and attitudes as much as the Revolutionary War or the Civil War has shaped America. Every time a Serbian boy or man picks up a weapon to fight another war, as Robert Kaplan, the historian, puts it, every Serbian peasant soldier knows what he is fighting for. When he was a baby, his mother greeted him, hail, little avenger of Kassavu, unquote. Imagine how this would have shaped your consciousness if every time you entered on a new phase of your life, you were greeted with the exhortation, hail, little avenger of 9-11.

From your mother, how would it shape your outlook on life? How would it color your worldview? So it is that the phrase heard all over the Balkans as a childhood ditty, hail, little avenger of Kassavu, has shaped the events of the Balkan Peninsula. Now, while the Battle of Kassavu shaped the Serbian mind as a devastating tragedy and served as an explanation for their desperate place in life, the Battle of Kassavu served as a point of pride and boasting for the Ottoman Turk Muslims. As one historian put it, Kassavu opened up for the Ottomans five centuries of victory, unquote.

Nothing now stood in their way of dominating the Balkan Peninsula. Therefore, when you look at a map of the Ottoman Empire at its height, you see it stretch from Persia in the east to the borders of Hungary in the west. For some 300 years, they would reign supreme throughout this region. This is what they aspire to again, even today. Believe me, Christian, you owe a debt of gratitude to countless men of the west for their heroic stand, though, against the Ottoman Turks over the centuries of conflict that stretched those 300 years of domination in the Balkan Peninsula.

There were heroes who resisted. Time and again, the Turk pressed the west from their strongholds in Hungary, moving inexorably westward towards Austria. Yet time and again, faithful Christian men would stand against them in village after village, nameless to us, but remembered in song and poem by Serb and Bosnian, Greek, and Russian. In fact, one poem celebrates the spiritual nature of King Lazar I, who chose a heavenly kingdom over an earthly kingdom when he was asked before his death by an angel, of what kind will you have your kingdom? Do you want a heavenly kingdom?

Do you want an earthly kingdom? The czar chose a heavenly kingdom and not an earthly kingdom. Then the Turks overwhelmed Lazar, and his army was destroyed with him. All was holy, all was honorable, and the goodness of God was fulfilled, unquote. Oh, the list of faithful Christian men was large, and the Ottoman Empire, filled with the zeal of Islam and the vengeance of Allah, would have conquered without hesitation all of Europe and the English islands, if not for these men's faith.

Well, just one of them I wanted to mention to you today goes by the name of Janos Hunyari. Janos Hunyari. Well, who in the world, you may ask, is Janos Hunyari? Of what significance can he possibly be? If I've never heard of him, well, history has a completely different view of him than most Westerners.

One historian puts it this way. He says, the name Janos Hunyari is virtually unknown outside his native country, but who probably has done more than any other individual in history to stem the Muslim invasion that, in the 15th century, threatened to overwhelm Europe. It's one reason you're not speaking Arabic today. Did you hear that? There's one name among the millions who lived during the 15th century who did more to thwart the dominance of Christian Europe by the Ottoman Turk than any other.

The literature of Western Europe is filled with the fear of the Ottoman Turk, more than we can ever imagine. No, 9-11 is nothing compared to this. If you can, multiply the fear and dread of 9-11 many thousand times over in your own imagination, and you may have a sense for the fear of the Muslim onslaught that characterized the period under consideration. Many times the Ottoman Turk threw themselves against the defenses of the West. Many dozens of times the West, excuse me, withstood their advances.

One man who did this more effectively than any other remains a hero in the small nation of Hungary is the aforementioned Janos Hunyari. There are many kinds of heroes in the history of mankind. Those heroes who utterly vanquish their enemies, achieving great victories for their peoples. There are their tragic heroes who die valiantly in a lost cause, at great sacrifice to themselves and their nation. Then there are those like Hunyari, who struggle against great odds, achieving victories that should not be theirs, but who also die in the end without ever seeing the fruits of their labor.

Such a hero was Janos Hunyari, to the West at least, and such a hero should he be to you, dear listener. Hunyari was rumored to be the son of a great Hungarian king, Sigismond. He was baptized in the magnificent Orthodox Basilica in Budapest, and grew up in the shadow of the church, with many of his relatives going into the priesthood. Yeah, he was a devout Christian, and he considered going into the priesthood, but was taught the skills and ways of the Christian knight instead.

His early years as a prince are shrouded in mystery, but we know that he was a fearless warrior who early on learned to fight the Turk on his own ground and with his own weapons and tactics. He was the very model of the warrior prince, yet he lived among his people without title or claim, leading army after army in defense of his beloved homeland, Hungary. And while every other king and prince shrunk in fear at the prospect of resisting the overwhelming onslaught of the Ottoman Turk and his zealous fighting proxy, the Janissary Hunyari was often the lone general.

Willing to risk everything to stop the Turk in his seeming unstoppable advance, he single-handedly created the European light cavalry, for instance, stripping the armor-laden knight of the Middle Ages of his heavy metal armor and equipping him instead with a lighter lance and sword, training him in tactical maneuvers that countered the swift tactics of the Muslim horsemen. His method and tactics would form the basis for centuries of the famous hussars, the very cavalry employed by Napoleon in his conquest of Europe.

Well, Janos Hunyari, a man without land or title, would earn the reputation of a king, fighting in the valleys and mountains and ravines of Hungary, Montenegro, and Romania, ranging all over the Balkans, claiming no village or city as his home. He would appear in all the cities of the empire, from Rome to Vienna to Constantinople, negotiating with kings and popes and sultans. He was labeled a ghost and a devil.

By his Ottoman enemies, a bandit and opportunist by local barons who envied his beloved status among the people, whose hearts were stolen by Hunyari, a king and patriot by the common people who loved him and trusted him to deliver them from the oppressive hand of the jihad and the pact of Omar.

Just when the sultan's troops would appear at the outskirts of a village, ready to impose the predatory tax of the pact of Omar, ready to impound the farm implements of the villages for use in other places, and intent upon impressing the youths of the village into the ranks of the janissaries, well, Hunyari would descend upon the sultan's troops from the mountain heights. He would strike them swiftly and suddenly, being outnumbered regularly by 10 to 1. He taught his men to pick off those at the front and back of the column, along with any stragglers, and then quickly disappear back into the mountains and valleys of the Balkans.

By doing this day after day, year after year, sometimes letting months go by before striking again, he instilled fear into the hearts of the fearless Turk. Oh, turning the tables, if you will. And on occasion, at the time and place of his own choosing, Hunyari would fight a pitch battle with his adamant foes. Oh, across a fearful Europe, one historian put it, the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, and the priests prayed and trembled, and the faithful, if they had the knowledge and imagination, shuddered at the advent of the Turks. Hunyari didn't tremble, excuse me, Hunyari didn't tremble.

He fought, unquote. Oh, Janos Hunyari is one of those rare men without whom we all would be speaking Arabic today. The next time you say a prayer, give thanks to God for Janos Hunyari and other obscure heroes like him, from whom we must learn how to resist the rising tide of militant Islam in our own day. Don't be naive. Wake up, listener.

How are we to do this? How are we to evaluate what happened on that mountainous, densely forested peninsula called the Balkans? Oh, number one, we must realize the religious faith of the Ottoman Turk was focused. The long tradition of jihad thrived under the Turkish sultans. In fact, Islam would enjoy another period of greatness and triumph as Arabic and Egyptian and Persian caliphates would feed into and be transformed into one of the greatest caliphs in history, Suleiman the Magnificent.

Remember the very name caliph means lieutenant, the idea being that a caliph is Allah's chosen successor to Muhammad. The religious faith of the Ottoman Turk was focused on conquest. And secondly, we must realize that the Ottoman Turk had a heritage of strong leaders. From the founding father of the Ottoman Empire, Uthman I, to the very embodiment of Islamic glory, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Turks raised up a constant stream of able caliphs and generals. You have to realize this if we're going to fight it.

These men were fearless and pious, committed to spreading the faith at the edge of gleaming scimitars and raping, plundering, and destroying the infidel, that's us, along the way. On the side of the West, with a rare exception of real heroes like Hunyadi, leadership was scarce and weak. Instead, what developed is what you have today. People ran and hid in the caves of secluded valleys of the densely forested mountains on the Balkan Peninsula, where, out of the persistent reach of the Turk, Western culture and church would survive, but barely. Oh, dear listener, number three, realize the Ottoman Turk had the supreme military force on earth.

The Ottoman Turk had the supreme military force on earth. What would happen if, indeed, Muslims today got a hold of the supreme military force of the United States, for example? Now, for over 300 years, the Ottoman Empire would expand and triumph virtually unopposed, stopped only by geography and the occasional pest, like Janos Hunyadi. This they did by applying and refining the fighting techniques brought with the Seljuk Turk from the steppes of Asia and Turkestan.

Combined with the long tradition of the Muslim warriors in Arabia, the Ottoman Turk fashioned an invincible army that culminated in the special forces, if you will, of the ancient world, that is, the Janissaries. Number four, we must also realize that the Ottoman Turk created one of the great Islamic cultures. Yes, even the opposites did in Persia. The Ottomans would bring all of the wealth and knowledge plundered from other lands to Istanbul and the Anatolian Peninsula and create the great culture of the Ottoman Empire. Oh, therefore, Christian, do not underestimate the enemy that we face.

You've learned that Islam is capable of generating a powerful world and life view, one that inspires men to great heights of achievement and power. You've also seen how the West consistently underestimated this capability and they paid dearly for it in loss after loss and how weakness and division made us incapable of effective resistance. That patterns be repeated in our own day.

All around us, we observe some of these very same qualities in our own leaders, weakness, who underestimate the powerful upsurge of Islamic fervor around the world, and they rather practice the religion of political correctness, pretending that all religions are of equal value and no one is more of a threat than any other. Oh, nation states like Iran are militantly Islamic, and they seek to strengthen all of those characteristics just outlined for you. Do you want America to succumb to the fate of the Balkans?

Where a map of our people and religion and cultures when plotted by color looks like a kaleidoscope of clashing colors and cultures, all fighting and vying with one another, until the very word for violent parochialism and butchery is still called balkanization.

If this will not be the fate of America, then pray, oh Christian, for a reformation of Christianity in our land, and for raising up strong leaders with a vision for leading us, for a strong military with a vital esprit de corps, and for a vibrant and productive Western culture based not upon the holy trinity of tolerance, diversity, and radical egalitarianism, no, but upon the Christian faith, Republican government, in a free market capitalist economy. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth.

New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. We invite you to join us and visit us. We have strong men and leaders in our own congregation. And you can call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.