The battle against ISIS must be waged in prayer, now!

(The following is an excerpt of a letter I recently sent to one of God’s choice influencers for the Kingdom in the world today. The correspondence was private but the last part of the letter is worthy of your attention, disciples of Jesus. The war that is being waged against ISIS cannot be won only in the physical. This is a spiritual affront. Our weapon is prayer.)

… In the last few years I have spent a lot of time in the East at God’s leading. I have listened to Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Kurds, Iraqis, Egyptians, and Israelis share their personal stories. I continually hear of people threatened, persecuted, and martyred by a common enemy; ISIS. It is one thing to sense anxiety about ISIS from the West. It is quite another to truly run from ISIS as an Easterner.

Today I have been agonizing in prayer about ISIS. A few months ago when I was in the Middle East I met people; mothers, fathers, grandparents, and children, some Muslim, some Christian, many with atrocious ISIS stories. You know of our many brothers and sisters that have already been martyred at the hands of the Satanic group. This demonic movement is only growing and we are becoming numb to the stories as American believers. “What can we do?” I keep crying out to the Lord. The Lord brought this Scripture to mind:

Jeremiah 20:10–12 (ESV)
10  For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my close friends,
watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we can overcome him
and take our revenge on him.”
11  But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble;
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
12  O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous,
who sees the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you have I committed my cause.

What if we mobilized every disciple of Jesus possible, to pray in unison on one day? What if millions of believers from around the world cried out to God for the blood of the martyrs and the agony of those persecuted at the hands of ISIS? What if on one day we all committed our cause to the Lord who is a dread warrior? This could be the tipping point. What if we begged God for the gospel to burn like a fire in even greater ways among the people of the Middle East? Would not the Lord hear our cry? What if in unity we asked Him to disable ISIS even as He did Sennacherib so that the whole world will know the Glory of our God? Would He not move in ways unimaginable for the propagation of the gospel in the region we are all working so hard to reach?

This may sound simple but we could:

Pick a Sunday as the day of prayer.
Ask people to fast and pray for 40 days with us leading up to that Sunday.
Use social media as a free vehicle to get the word out.
Build an online guide to help pastors know how to lead their churches to pray.
And then… we pray in every nation, among every tribe, in every tongue so the whole world will know the Glory of Christ..

Obviously, this effort of worldwide magnitude will require more that I can do on my own. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ Universal, can we unite for this cause of prayer? In order to reach the believers of the world we need to build a coalition of leaders that the believers of the world already listen to so that we can get the message out through their normal efforts like social media, blogs, podcasts, etc. In the West I think of people like David Platt and John Piper, Albert Mohler, Ronnie Floyd, Rick Warren, Franklin Graham, Joel Rosenberg, Francis Chan, and many others. In the East there are many in Cairo, Jerusalem, and Beirut that would quickly partner for the fame of Jesus in light of the fear mongers, ISIS. Men and women of God entrusted to shepherd His Kingdom these days, let us join together in prayer. Maybe we need to be like Elijah or Hezekiah right now. Maybe we need to call down fire from Heaven. We cannot sit idly by. I trust God will lead you as you read this, in the ways that he wants you to go. Contact me by commenting if you have been trusted with influence and feel led to engage in such an effort. If you need a more private way of communicating utilize my email: leadpastor@bafbc.org.