Please join me in praying for the Christian converts in Iran, the church should be united in our cry to the Lord to help his people. Pray that the world leaders will stand up against such a violation of the Iranian people’s basic human right of worshiping the God they believe in:
A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled “Islamic Penal Code”, which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.
[…]
For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the “crime” of abandoning one’s religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.
Today, Rashin’s brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran’s holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran’s new law.
Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. “I am terribly anxious about him,” she explains. “Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don’t think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim.”
Pray also that the Lord will strengthen the faith of those who are being persecuted so that they may share the gospel with all those they come in contact with and that they will view their imprisonment as Paul did:
ESV Philippians 2:17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.
And then there’s this:
President Ahmadinejad. “The President didn’t initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates,” says Papadouris, “but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess: Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran’s problems, by persecuting apostates.”
Nero tried this as well but inevitably what ends up happening is the growth of the church. It’s amazing that nothing spurs the growth of the church as much as the persecution of it’s people.