Pastor addresses Ebola as well as Christians in Iraq and Syria

Apostle Paul’s letters give timeless encouragement and instruction; they were also meant to address the troubles and concerns facing their respective churches’ and cultures’ day and time.

With Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS hell-bent on establishing their Middle East caliphate, First Baptist Church Atlanta (FBA) Associate Pastor Anthony George urged churchgoers to pray for Christians in Iraq in Syria, being horribly persecuted by such wicked sects.

George lamented how these believers are being separated from their families, having businesses that they spent their life building taken away, forced from their homes at a day’s notice “all because they love Jesus.” George prayed to “raise up forces of light” to defeat these forces of evil.

Horrific acts against religious minorities, as well as other Muslims, by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria are detailed in this testimony issued to the state department earlier this month:

There have been reports of mass killings in Christian … villages, conversion at gunpoint, beheadings, kidnappings, and extreme oppression and abuse of women from all communities. Two Syrian bishops and a priest were kidnapped by extremists in early- and mid-2013, and their fates remain unknown … ISIL announced that Christians in Raqqa, Syria must convert, pay a special tax administered during medieval times, or face death—just as it later did in Mosul, Iraq … Christians were barred from receiving work at public sector jobs and wage stipends. Christian churches and offices were looted and occupied by ISIL … [who also] destroyed hundreds of mosques and shrines throughout the territory it controlled, destroyed Christian statues of the Virgin Mary, and took sledgehammers to the tomb of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul.

On the heels of his condemning ISIS last month, yesterday Pope Francis once again denounced religious militants:

Let no one consider themselves to be the ‘armor’ of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression … May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the rights of everyone to religious freedom.

This sentiment is consistent with the third commandment: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” (Exodus 20:7)

This taking the Lord’s name in vain applies to those doing ungodly things in the name of God.

George also led the congregation in praying for healing in Africa from this Ebola scourge, to “stop the spread of this virus, through hygiene, training and a miracle.”

There’s hope, in that “Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all … So he is first in everything.” (Colossians 1:18)

Jesus healed the sick and performed miracles. He is alive and nothing is beyond His reach, or God’s grace.