A Cry From Iran is a movie about a Christian convert from Islam by the name of Mehdi Dibaj, who was sentenced to death. His crime was apostasy. He had already served ten years in prison.
The leader of Evangelical Christians of Iran, Haik Hovsepian, chose to speak out, launching an international campaign to have Dibaj’s sentence overturned. Miraculously, Dibaj was freed from prison a few days before his execution date.
Pastor Haik soon disappeared and was later found with 26 stab wounds to his body.
Dibaj says, “I was the one who should have died, not Haik.” Six months later he was also martyred.
Click Cry From Iran to watch the trailer.
Could you give your life for someone else, especially someone not related to you?
Christians in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, Cuba, Columbia, Mexico, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan, among other countries, are suffering persecution that usually lead to horrific deaths.
Christians in America suffer for their faith by being called names, and in recent years, a few have suffered media attacks and imprisonment, but none have suffered what Christian brothers and sisters overseas suffer on a daily basis.
ISIS kidnaps, sells, trades, and executes children. They beat them with hoses and electric cables, forcing them to memorize Islamic sayings. They train the boys to decapitate people as Cubs of the Islamic State. They rape the girls that are not sold or traded. Others are just beheaded and left to rot.
Pastor Andrew Brunson is an American Pastor who has been jailed on bogus terrorism charged in Turkey. He has overseen a church there for 23 years. He has asked for President Trump to help him be released and returned to his family in North Carolina. So far, his imprisonment is humane, but that could change anytime with Iran’s hatred of America. (American Pastor Imprisoned in Turkey)
Jesus warned us about being persecuted for His Name’s sake.
Matthew 5:11, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
Matthew 24:9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.”
Can you imagine the suffering of these people as they suffer for not denying their faith in their Lord Jesus Christ? What about the suffering of their families that are left to live? How many tears have been shed, and how many are being shed as you read this post?
Psalm 56:3-4, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise. In God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
Romans 8:38-39, “ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Psalm 56:8, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
The tears of these martyrs and their loved ones don’t just drop to the ground and blead away into the dirt, never to be seen again.
These tears may be unheard by all others, but they are heard and felt by God. The day will come when God will avenge the blood of His children as shown in Revelation 6:9-11.
“ When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.”
The Middle East had a custom with ‘Tear Bottles’.
- Wives kept tears shed for their husbands while they were away at war. When the husbands returned home, they gave him their bottle of tears as proof of their love.
- Tears shed for loved ones at funerals were also collected in a bottle, and placed in their caskets. Archaeologists have found many of these bottles in ancient tombs.
David knew way before the Apostle John ever wrote Revelation 6:9-11 that God collected each and every tear of His people around the world.
God has every one of those tears in a bottle, and the pleas and cries for help and justice wafts up before God continually as incense from the altar before His throne.
The tears of Pastor Haik, Dibaj, Brunson, and millions of others are heard, seen, and felt by God. One day soon He will arise from His throne and give the command to His angel to pour each and every tear out as judgment on those who have brought suffering and death to His followers.
In the meantime, there is a cry for someone to stand in the gap for; not just the unbelievers, and not just for those who have grown cold in their walk with their Lord; but for those pastors, missionaries, and believers around the world who are suffering horrible things for the Name of Christ.
Will you answer the call to pray as an intercessor? Will you shed a few tears for the persecuted? God will definitely put them into a bottle.
ISIS is reported to have sleeper agents throughout the USA, ready for the command to strike. Are you ready to die for your faith in Christ? Are you able to suffer as our brothers and sisters have overseas? If you were being tortured and coerced to deny your faith in Christ, facing death, wouldn’t you be grateful for others praying for your strength to suffer for Him?