Iran (MNN) — You might think of Iran as a nation closed off to the gospel, but it’s actually in a unique moment in history where the good news of Jesus can have massive reach. Here’s what you need to know.
Iran’s role on the world stage today has had ominous overtones. Lana Silk with Transform Iran acknowledges, “Iran has made it very clear their agenda is to wipe out Israel.”
But a closer look shows a growing rift between the government of Iran and the people of Iran. Young people have called for the end to the regime which their parents and grandparents once welcomed into power.
Baptizing an Iranian believer.
(Photo courtesy of Transform Iran)
“It will take something much bigger than what we’re seeing now to dethrone that regime,” Silk says.
But Silk believes that Iran will one day be a free country, and that it will happen within our lifetimes. The Church must be ready.
“That (one-day freedom of Iran) is what drives us every day as a ministry,” she says. “In an environment in which people are silenced and controlled, they are fighting and looking for water in a desert, if you will. We know that Jesus is the source of that life that they’re looking for — and they’re finding Him.
“But come a day when Iran is open and every version of untruth will be available to them freely, then we have a different fight on our hands.”
It will be the spiritual battle of the West, where Silk says there is “a buffet of life’s choices and options, and people can pick and choose and pick it up and drop it as they want.”
There are 88 million people in Iran, and Transform Iran’s mission is to spread the gospel to each one of them — literate, illiterate, Persian Farsi speaking, ethnic minorities in their own languages, everyone.
Your prayers matter in this massive opportunity. Ask God to lead Iranians to Jesus when they look for answers. Pray for wisdom, effectiveness, equipping, resources and protection for ministries like Transform Iran and others who are spreading the gospel in the nation.
“Let’s pray that God’s will happens,” Silk says. “We don’t know how things are going to play out. But God is sovereign. The Word tells us that He steers the hearts of kings like the course of water, like rivers.”
Learn more about the ministries of Transform Iran here.
Header photo is a representative stock image taken in Tehran, Iran, courtesy of Omid Mozzafari/Unsplash.
