I am not on an anti-Islam tear, but there are a number of Islamic issues that are flying at my face right now, and I want to share them with you. I want to give you a follow-up to the Islam on Capitol Hill event, share a special update on Rifqa Bary, and clue you in to a sinister move at the U.N. to place Christians under Islamic dominion. I will take these in reverse order. But first, less than 24 hours ago I received this report about Maryam and Marzieh in Iran:
Maryam and Marzieh update
According to Elam ministries, Maryam Rostampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) continue to be imprisoned in Iran. They were imprisoned in March because of their participation in a Christian Church and professing their faith in Christ. Their attorney said recently, “My clients are not prepared to lie about their faith under any condition.”
Both suffer ill health, and last Sunday, October 4, Maryam suffered severe food poisoning. After much insistence prison authorities finally relented and gave her medical attention.
Their story has spread all across the Christian world and they are aware that Christians worldwide are praying for them. They say, “Thank you for praying for us. We are humbled and strengthened by your prayers, and we are determined to remain faithful to Jesus, even unto death.”
Please remember them in your daily prayers.
Defamation of Religion
The Islamic nations of this world will never cease seeking to make their religion supreme over all the earth. That doesn’t surprise us.
Some might even say, “But doesn’t Christianity seek to do the same?”
Christians believe their religion is the one and true faith, that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and that some day He will return to reign supreme on the Earth.
Where Christians differ from Muslims (among other things) is that Christians believe each individual must claim Jesus as their Savior from their hearts. Each person is free to accept or reject Jesus Christ, and each must willingly make Jesus King of their lives. Conversions by force are not conversions at all.
Islam, on the other hand, assumes a supremacist attitude, and considers all other religions inferior. It then seeks to impose this “dhimmitude” or second-class status on members of all other religions. They must respect Islam while Muslims do not need to respect Christians or members of any other religion.
That is what is behind the current push by Muslim nations to bring a “Defamation of Religion” resolution before the U.N. “Defamation of Religion” sounds like something everyone should be against. But in this case, it is a resolution that singles out Islam for protection against defamation. It stipulates that anyone criticizing Islam should or may be punished, when in fact simply proclaiming Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, could be considered anti-Muslim. The consequence of that could result in Christians being persecuted in Islamic countries with the approval of the U.N.
To read more about this, and to sign a petition being circulated by Open Doors, go to the Open Doors website.
There are many differences between Islam and faith in Christ. I don’t mean to imply that this is the only or even the most significant difference. But this is an important issue.
Rifqa Bary needs your help
Rifqa Bary is the 17-year-old girl who fled from her Muslim family because she believed her father wants to kill her. Rifqa found Jesus Christ as her Savior when she was 14 through the ministry of New Life Church near the campus of Ohio State University about four years ago.
Being very dissatisfied with the Muslim routine, she would lie awake hours at night seeking spiritual reality. Her school friends invited her to their youth meetings at church, and she went with them. There she found the life-giving spirit of Jesus. She committed her life to Christ, and was even secretly baptized.
She knew her Muslim parents would strongly disapprove so she kept her new faith a secret, lying awake at night to pray to Jesus and read her New Testament secretly. At other times she would wait till her father was asleep and then go outside to pray. She kept her secret for several years. In her own words:
"I gave my heart to God, that's when I was thirteen. At this point I knew what the consequences were, which was death, and my family, I knew it, but of course I wouldn't tell anyone because who would believe me? This is the U.S. I hid my Bible in my house, I would wake up in the middle of the night and cry out to God in the bathroom, ....and God would sustain me...I would cry out to him there and I would be ok because that would be enough. I would pray on the balcony when my parents were asleep, but for four years I hid as a secret Christian, and the Lord was simply good at sustaining me and setting my heart ablaze for his kingdom every step of the way."
— from a conference telephone prayer call.
Then several months ago her mother found a Christian book in her room while she was away and confronted her with it. Some reports said the family learned about her change of faith through her Facebook postings.
Rifqa says when her father learned about it he threatened to kill her as an “honor” killing. He has since testified in court he never threatened her and would never do such a thing.
It is a disgrace in a Muslim family if any member becomes an apostate, i.e. leaves the faith for any other religion, especially for Christianity. One eliminates the disgrace by eliminating the apostate. This is common practice in Muslim countries, and there are instances of it happening among Muslim communities in America. Are Rifqa’s parents different?
Meanwhile Rifqa had struck up an online friendship with Blake Lorenz, pastor of Global Revolution Church in Orlando, whom she met on Facebook. Out of fear for her life Rifqa hitched a ride to the bus station, took the bus to Orlando, and ended up at the front door of the house of Blake and Beverly Lorenz.
Rifqa Bary photo from AtlasShrugs.com blog. According to Pamela Geller, Rifqa lost her right eye when her brother beat her.
There she had refuge until her parents filed a missing person report and authorities traced her location via her cell phone and computer use. She was then turned over to Florida child protection services. They still have custody of her and she is living in an undisclosed location.
Meanwhile, her parents have filed legal action to have her returned to them (according to U.S. law). At the same time her elder brother has informed a San Francisco-based Islamic blogger of her whereabouts. The blogger allegedly has written:
“I'll tell you one thing, reader... if she's not safe in Ohio, she's not safe in Florida. All it took was a little creative Googling and I was able to determine the likely address where she's staying*... But I digress.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says it finds no “credible” evidence that her father would kill her. Perhaps they don’t know this is a way of life in Islamic communities, and that the Qur'an permits lying and deception to one’s enemies.
Rifqa Bary is in need of your prayers. Some have called her case the canary in the coal mine. What happens to her will affect scores, hundreds, or even thousands of those that follow. There is also an appeal for financial help. To learn more, go to RifqaBary.com.
What Capitol Hill Wasn’t
The “Islam on Capitol Hill” event was designed to show that Muslims love America and are not terrorists. Planners bragged they would draw 50,000 Muslims to Capitol Hill.
Actually, they drew less than 3,000, according to reports. It was a non-event, not even covered by the usually liberal-minded media. My Google searches did not locate a single report of it in the Washington Post, Washington Times, or New York Times. But my friend, Julia Duin, at the Washington Times told me the media was there in full force, and the Times did print her extensive review of what did or did not happen. I did eventually find it on page four of my Google search. See The Washington Times.
But there was another thing it wasn’t. Though the event took place the week after plots to do Jihad in America were discovered, there was no pronouncement from the platform denouncing terror.
In the week leading up to the event, two Muslims, including an imam, were arrested for allegedly plotting terrorist acts with other Muslims in Denver and New York City.
According to the Assyrian International News Agency, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, arrested for placing an inert car bomb in a 60-story office tower in downtown Dallas, expressed his vision for America this way: “I truly say it that my dream is to be among God's soldiers, first for the support of Islam and my beloved Sheik Usama [bin Laden], may God give him long life…. I am ready for the Jihadi life…. Victory is coming, is coming to defeat the Romans [i.e., Christians] and for the destruction of the Jews. God is Most Great. We shall attack them in their very homes. Brother, by God, we shall attack them in a manner that hurts, an attack that shakes the world.”
We can be very thankful for the diligent efforts of our CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and other security agencies. I have them on my daily prayer list. Do you?
A chance to tell the Good News
It may be that Muslims dropped the ball, but one former Muslim, now a Christian, had a chance to tell the whole Muslim world about Jesus Christ.
Jamal Jivanjee, one of Rikfa’s champions and a former Muslim become believer in Jesus Christ, in a recent e-mail told how he was able to proclaim the gospel to the whole Muslim world at the Islam on Capitol Hill event.
He wrote, “I knew that the Lord had called me to make the trip to DC for some particular reason, so I simply prayed that He would accomplish all that He wanted to accomplish through me that day.” He said that a friend had prayed specifically that his testimony would be shared with “masses of people” that day. That seemed an unlikely possibility, but he knew that with God all things are possible.
After arriving he watched two Muslim men finish their Islamic prayers, and then they came up to him. Upon learning his name was Jamal, they assumed he was Muslim. Jamal shocked them when he shared his testimony with them, and they walked away disgusted. Still, Jamal sensed he needed to stay in the area and pray.
Then he noticed a journalist of Middle Eastern descent and his cameraman coming toward the two men. Jamal assumed that the journalist was Muslim, and was surprised when he overheard him sharing Christ with the two men and talking about the reliability of the Bible.
After they were finished, Jamal introduced himself to the journalist. The journalist assumed Jamal was a Muslim, but after Jamal told him he was a follower of Jesus, the journalist asked him to share his story, and his father’s story, of coming out of Islam. He also shared Rifqa’s story on camera.
“It was a very encouraging conversation in which I sensed the presence and power of God all around,” Jamal wrote.
After the interview, Jamal learned that the journalist was the executive director of the first Christian television channel that was given permission to broadcast on one of the largest Arab satellite networks in the Middle East. This satellite network covers the entire Middle East and is heavily watched. So Jamal’s testimony will be—or has been—telecast into every home in the Middle East. Talk about a mass audience!
Then that evening Jamal visited the Justice House Of Prayer (JHOP), where committed Christians including congressional staffers pray for men and women in the U.S. government on a 24/7 basis. He said they prayed for Rifqa and that the heart devotion to Jesus exhibited in this teen girl would be birthed across the sleeping American church.
The previous night several national Christian leaders including James Dobson, Lou Engle and Tony Perkins held a conference telephone prayer meeting with Rifqa and asked her to pray for them and the events in our nation, including the Capitol Hill event the next day.
“This was a very important conference call,” Jamal wrote, “as it literally mobilized the prayers of hundreds of thousands of Christians who are not asleep or distracted, but who are awake to the heart of God! This led into the events of Friday, as well as the prayer service at JHOP that evening.”
He continued: “I believe that the Lord used the prayers of the awakening church to accomplish His victory! I know that I have talked a lot about the sleeping American church recently, but I am happy to report to you that not all the American church is sleeping!”
Jamal concludes, “My consistent prayer has been that the Lord would use [Rifqa] as a spark, or catalyst, to awaken the sleeping American church to the heart of God.
“Her passion and love for the Lord that has been cultivated through prayer and devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus is a story that needs to be told to provoke the rest of the church to jealousy.”
“I know that this is only the beginning. Scripture says that the closer we get to the return of Jesus, the darker it will get. But it also says that in the midst of all this darkness and trouble, this gospel of the kingdom will go out to the entire world as a testimony to all the nations. Then the end will come. (Matthew 24). The best truly is yet to come, and those who are awake will be a part of it! Are you ready?”
It is a disgrace in a Muslim family if any member becomes an apostate, i.e. leaves the faith for any other religion, especially for Christianity. One eliminates the disgrace by eliminating the apostate. This is common practice in Muslim countries, and there are instances of it happening among Muslim communities in America. Are Rifqa’s parents different?