“The Fire of GOD”
It seems, the more difficult or impossible the circumstances, the more God shows Himself strong on behalf of those that love Him and commit to His ways. The Bible speaks of great exploits that will be done by the followers of Christ. Some of the accounts of miracles I am receiving are stories I could not make up if I tried. Most of us are familiar with what Jesus told His disciples when He told them that even greater things would be done than even what He had been doing while walking the dusty streets of Earth. These things are happening today and are being confirmed in many locations around the world, including in the volatile Middle East.
In this update I would like to share with you the continuation of the story with brother Omar in Iraq. If you have read the previous update, you will have read what happened with his child and the Iraqi officer and his wife which had been responsible for the twelve month old child’s death. In the previous update I also told the story of God’s intervention into the life of this officer and also the twenty soldiers directly under the supervision of this officer. If you have not read this update, I encourage you to do so because the story now continues.
What happened of course brought consequences, some good, and some not good at all. It seems that 18 of the men were able to reach their families with the good news of the love of God. Two men however were sons of two different head sheikhs. These sheikhs forced these grown men, one about 40 and the other 35, to leave their families behind and disappear. These two men were both married and had children. When this happened they went to Omar’s location and Omar managed to find them a tent to use. For the next few days these two men then gathered with the other former Iraqi soldiers and began taking a Bible course taught by Omar.
After taking this class for a few days, the two head sheikhs came and demanded to see their sons. After locating them, they pulled them out of their class, tied their hands together to each other and began beating them with clubs of some type. They were told that they would continue being beaten until they repented of their rejection of Islam–even if it meant they would beat them to death.
Many people watched this and the longer it went on, the bloodier and beaten up the men became. At one point, Omar tried to intervene but this did not work at all. After the beating had gone on for about one hour, the clubs that were being used to beat the men caught on fire! The clubs continued burning and soon the two sheikh’s clothing also caught on fire. Then they began screaming and said that they felt like their insides were also on fire!
Omar and the two sons were shocked and really didn’t know what to do. The burning sheikhs began to beg for forgiveness for what they had done. The two sons, who now were being released from the ropes that tied their hands together went to their fathers and said that they forgave them but only God could forgive men’s sins against Him. The two fathers then knelt in prayer and prayed the sinner’s prayer before the entire crowd that had gathered. They were also baptized that very same day.
I found out an interesting fact about the beating the two sons took. They never felt any pain the entire time they were being beaten. For His own reasons, God chose to spare them the pain, although their bodies were not spared the damages.
As a result of this miracle, God touched many more lives. Many more family units were reached with the Gospel of Jesus, the soon coming Messiah and KING of Kings. A great many more prayed the sinner’s prayer and had their eternal destinies changed to the one that God had in mind for them from the beginning.
God is good!
Jake Geier