Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, now Algeria and more. What is behind the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa?
The Western media continues to tell us that these folks are all seeking greater freedom but that is a very deceptive and naive view. In reality all of these nations have been in transition for some time with Muslim radical Islamists gaining ground and changing the entire picture of the Middle East.
Western intellectuals continue to talk about Islam as a ‘religion of peace’ that needs to be encouraged to go through some kind of moderate revival or ‘Reformation’ like Christianity went through. So many naively talk about this possibility and totally ignore the fact that Islam is in the midst of a revival all right -a fundamentalist radical revival that is affecting (actually infecting) nearly all Muslims around the world, even those in Western countries including America.
Now for what is really behind it all—principalities and powers. There is an unseen battle going on right now in the Heavenlies. However, the effects of the spiritual battle can be seen also in the natural.
I had an open vision on 9/11/01 during which the Lord told me that the Prince of Islam had exceeded his authority in the attack and that 100 million Muslims were going to be converted to Christ as a ‘first fruits’ and part of a world-wide Christian harvest and revival.
A couple of years later a Muslim leader in Africa was sounding an alarm that according to his figures at the time over 6 million Muslims a year were converting to Christianity in Africa. Since then the persecution of Christians has become rather severe in Muslim areas of Northern Africa.
We have also documented on this blog on a number of occasions that a secret hidden revival was going on in Muslim countries where people were being converted to Christ through dreams, visions, and healings. It has been substantially a hidden ‘house church’ movement particularly in Iran where as far as we can tell as many as 500,000 Muslims have come to Christ.
In the mean time the enemy has come back with a vengeance and persecution of the traditional churches in Muslim countries have been on the increase. For example, over 500,000 Iraqi Christians have fled the country since the fall of the Saddam regime. American forces have ironically gone out of their way not to be seen as protectors of the Christian community and it has become open season on the traditional Christians in that country.
In Israel, Palestinian Christians are persecuted by both the Muslims and the Jews. The Palestinian Christian community continues to decrease as they leave the country though there has been some reports of Palestinian Muslims secretly coming to Christ. The same can be said of Lebanon where a generation ago the Christian community was strong but after the last civil war between Christian and Muslim militias the Islamists particularly Hezbollah now have the upper hand and Christians have lost control over their own communities in the Southern part of the country.
Turning to Egypt, the Coptic Christians who have been part of that country since the first century and have lived in peace with the Muslims in the same communities for over a thousand years are now being increasingly subjected to persecution and violence. This from the ‘freedom loving’ folks that our press is writing about. According to a recent poll 84 percent of the Egyptians favor the death penalty for any Muslim who becomes a Christian. Obviously a spiritual battle is raging in that country.
Now for a major example of demonic activity in the natural. Iran’s supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Khamenei is telling his leaders that the hidden ‘12th Imam’ is now appearing to him continually and giving him marching orders. Just this week Iran’s President Ahmadinejad told European leaders and later a major Iranian crowd of supporters that the hidden ‘12th Imam’ was behind all of the current chaos in the Middle East and that it was the beginning of the rise of Islam into one dominant Islamist World power under the leadership of the promised Muslim Mahdi –the Shiite ‘12th Imam’:
“The final move has begun. We are in the middle of a world revolution managed by this dear (12th Imam). A great awakening is unfolding. One can witness the hand of Imam in managing it.”
Wow. Obviously it is time for all of us to pray for the Middle East and for Christian revival and harvest to continue especially in Muslim lands. This is particularly a good time for all Christian intercessors to rise up and be heard and come against the plans of the enemy.
