Iran
(MNN) — G8 leaders are alarmed by Iran's post-election crackdown–although
dissenters remain defiant. The
instability in the country reminds many of the disintegration that occurred in
the Islamic revolution.
Mir Hossein Mousavi calls President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
re-election a fraud and wants the results scrapped.
The official outcome of the June
12 vote triggered days of street
protests. Authorities responded with a heavy-handed silencing of
activists, academics, journalists and lawyers. They also clamped down on internet
and website access as well as on media, jamming many of television and radio
signals for a while. That did little to
staunch the flow of information with the end result being a mixed bag.
There are also both good and bad possible outcomes from this situation
for the church, says Evangelist Sammy Tippit. "It seems as though the
government is so caught up with what's taking place and the protests, that they
have forgotten about believers, and so left them alone, to some extent, but in
other places, they're blaming the believers."
Many believers are underground, but Tippit says their television
broadcast is reaching them. "I'm
going through that series about how to face those hills in life right now, in
my broadcast, coinciding with a very difficult time in the life of the
nation,"…although sometimes they're jammed, they're currently providing
discipleship training materials.
Their broadcast is a series of messages that Sammy Tippit preaches at
various training conferences for Persians around the world and is then
translated and sent out to Mohabat television, a Christian Iranian TV station.
Mohabat, which has been in existence for about 1 1/2 years, transmits
all of its programs in Farsi, but its channels reach throughout Europe and the
Middle East as well.
The Iranians have been very open to the Gospel and this is a great tool
for the Word of God to be spread throughout the Middle East. STM's
Iranian broadcast is unique because most of the preachers who speak on Mohabat
television are Iranians who live in the West. Tippit is one of the only
Americans who preaches on this station, with the help of a translator.
The open witness of the Good News
is banned and government spies monitor Christian groups. Believers are
discriminated against in education, employment, and property ownership and also
face arrests, imprisonment, and sometimes even death.
That's why believers need prayer support. "Pray that they would not give in to
fear, but that they would be strong in the Lord and that during these days they
would have great opportunities to share the Gospel."
Pray for hundreds and thousands of people to be touched by the messages
that flow from Tippit. Pray that God will give Tippit the right words so
that people might know Jesus Christ. And pray that the technology will
flow smoothly into this difficult area of the world.
