Prayer Matters Part 1

In May 2018, in Nigeria, 500 former Muslims gathered at night to pray and learn something from God’s Word. Hearing about the meeting, Boko Haram Islamists attacked. They captured 72 men, women and children and demanded they all return to Islam. Should they refuse, the next morning, their children would be killed while they watched.

Throughout the night the captives agonised over what response to make. Then some of the children reported that there was no need to fear. They claimed that Jesus had visited them to reassure them they would be protected.

The next morning the Islamists returned, lined up the children and asked for the adults’ response. It was that they would not revert to Islam. They would not forsake their faith in Jesus. 

The firing squad was lined up and ordered to aim their rifles ready to fire. Before any trigger was depressed, suddenly the would-be killers were screaming, “Snakes are attacking us.” Some of them dropped dead where they stood. Others dropped their guns and fled.

Seizing the opportunity a Christian darted out, retrieved one of the guns and was about to shoot at the fleeing killers when a child raced forward calling out, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Can’t you see the men in white are fighting for us?”

The angels had arrived.

Sometime later upon hearing what had transpired a number of foreign missionaries came to check it out. In that everyone interviewed recounted exactly the same story, they accepted that it was true. One of them then raised a disturbing question. “Why is it that we never see this sort of event back in our countries?”

In another country in which I carry some ministry responsibilities, a similarly motivated group were hunting for a local man wo was a member of our staff. If they could catch him, they intended to kill him because it was their belief he had committed treason. He had left Islam to follow Jesus of the Bible. The penalty is death.

Knowing this many of us were praying for his protection.

Having learned that on his day off each Friday he cycled alone out to his distant farm plot to tend his vegetable garden, they lay in wait ready to ambush him. Three times they waited to kill him. Three times they failed to attack.

Why? What happened?

Later they reported, “We couldn’t implement our plan because every time this apostate came, he was surrounded by a number of men dressed in white.”

Those angels—again!

These sorts of events, the appearance of angels, bolts of lightning flashing from the sky exactly as it was in 1 Kings 18 with Elijah on Mt Carmel locked in a deathly contest with the 400 prophets of Baal, the dead returning to life and much more, are relatively common in non-Western places in which I am privileged to minister.

Why doesn’t it happen in the West? I will start unpacking that in post 2 of this series titled “Prayer Matters.”