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| Pray for Turkey and also for the ancient Hagia Sophia church: Christine Darg revisiting Istanbul on a recent trip after many previous prayer journeys throughout that Bible Land |
Praying
for Turkey: the Forgotten Holy Land
Christine Darg
July 30, 2016
Jerusalem
Channel
Since the failed coup in Turkey against
President Recep Erdogan, we are increasingly concerned about the purges that
are going on, the arrests, torture and creeping Islamization.
Pray for the church in Turkey!
Pray for women who previously had some
freedoms in the secular society that is quickly eroding.
According to numerous sources, thousands of
coup prisoners have been raped, starved and hogtied– press photos have been
horrendous.
Ancient Bible land of Turkey, sometimes
called the “forgotten Holy Land,” is today increasingly under Islamic control.
Many
Bible teachers and prophecy watchers believe that current events are preparing
for the ominous alliance of Russian and Islamic nations that will come against
Israel in the latter days, as envisioned by Ezekiel 38-39.
If
that is the case, let us pray for maximum souls to be saved through satellite
tv, internet and other means in the window of opportunity that remains.
The current unrest cannot bode well for the
Body of Messiah–followers of Jesus are less than 0.1% of the population of 72
million.
Yet Turkey, a land that I dearly love, is
the land of St. Paul, Antioch, Ephesus, Galatia and the Seven Churches of the
Book of Revelation.
And there are great concerns that one of
the most magnificent Christian basilicas, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, could
again be turned into a mosque.
On the last Friday of Ramadan this year,
the Muslim call to prayer was sung in the main sanctuary of the Hagia Sophia,
setting off alarm bells in the Christian world. This hasn’t happened in more
than 80 years.
Built by the Byzantines in the 6th century,
Hagia Sophia became a mosque in the 15th century after Constantinople was
conquered by the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed II.
“The first thing he did, by the way, after
conquering Constantinople was to go to Hagia Sophia and take an axe and break
down the Christian altar there to prove that another faith had taken over,”
according to Dr. Paul Maier, author of The Constantine Codex.
On behalf of the body of Messiah in Turkey,
church leaders are requesting that we pray Proverbs 11: 11
“By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted….” Proverbs 11:11
“By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted….” Proverbs 11:11
They have also requested:
– Pray the Lord will display His love and
mercy to the people of Turkey by pouring out His Holy Spirit upon our land,
revealing His glory through healings, signs and wonders. [Truly in his love and
mercy, the Lord continues to move supernaturally in the Muslim world despite
the bad press of the terrorists.
Just
yesterday in Jerusalem a Muslim friend of mine who had undergone an ordeal of
operation and chemotherapy said that the risen Lord Jesus visited his hospital
bedside, held his hand and comforted him.]
– Pray the Lord breaks down the endless
disinformation about Messiah, the Bible and Christians that has blinded and
hardened hearts in our land. Pray that God redeems the negative memories of
history.
–Pray that hearts and eyes are opened to
see Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.
–Pray for the Turkish believers who are
always on the frontline to walk close to the Lord. Pray for refreshing,
emboldening, strengthening, protection and encouragement.
–Pray for more servant-hearted leaders and
faithful laborers.
Furthermore, for your prayers on behalf of
oppressed women, the Gatestone Institute recently reported that in Turkey the
head of a department of the Supreme Court of Appeals has revealed that nearly
3,000 marriages were registered between the victims of sexual abuse, including
rape, and their assailants.
The
judge mentioned a particular case in which three men kidnapped and raped a
girl, then one of them married her, so the sentences for all three men were
lifted.
Instead
of passing legislation to amend grotesque articles in the penal code, Erdogan
prefers “family engineering” in line with his Islamist thinking, according to
the Gatestone Institute source.
Most recently Erdogan told a women’s
association that “family planning and contraception were not for Muslim
families.” In addition, Turkey’s First Lady, Emine Erdogan, shocked many when
she said that Ottoman-era harems were “educational enters that prepared women
for life.”
In 2015, Turkey ranked 130th in gender
equality among a group of 145 countries and we are not surprised since Erdogan
had objected to equality between the sexes as a concept “against nature.”
Related Posts:
Related Posts:
http://jerusalemchannel.tv/praying-turkey-forgotten-holy-land/
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