How the Spread of ISIS Is Actually Growing the Kingdom of God
Bethel worship artist Sean Feucht says that the spread of the Islamic State has allowed his ministry, Light a Candle, to evangelize to people who have never heard the gospel.
“Satan has overplayed his hand,” Feucht says. “The massive amounts of oppression, darkness and wickedness that these beautiful people have experienced, the Lord is using it.”
Feucht also uses music to shift the spiritual atmosphere and usher in the Holy Spirit into the darkest places.
“Songs go to places where sermons can never go,” Feucht says.
“We’ve taken songs into palaces, into war zones, into places where you just can’t preach,” Feucht says. “Our songs carry the message [of Jesus]. They carry the heart, the DNA [of who God is].”
On one of his trips to Iraq, Feucht brought his guitar into one of the refugee camps built near a compound that was previously run by ISIS. The Allied forces reportedly dropped a bomb on the house and destroyed it.
“We went literally in that destroyed house and released the song of redemption and of hope,” Feucht says. “I felt like that was an important thing for us to do, to be prophets of hope and sing over the nation and release salvation.”
Feucht’s team recently filmed one of their trips into an Iraqi refugee camp for the Heart and Hands: Iraq documentary. The documentary tells the incredible testimonies of the Christian men and women in the camp and how their faith endured through horrific persecution.
The team encountered one man who said Jesus appeared to him twice in a dream.
“They were hitting me with big blocks on my body,” the man tells Feucht of his persecutors. “The stones were not affecting me. And the last time, they drenched me with 20 liters of gasoline. And they burned me, but I didn’t burn.”
Feucht tells Charisma that the refugee’s story, while profound, is not unique.
“The amazing thing is, once we start talking about Jesus, we realize how many people have had encounters with Him,” Feucht says. “So many people have actually had dreams and visions, and it gives us a really great foundation to begin to speak to them.”
Feucht says Muslims need the encounters to embrace Christianity.
“Arguing doesn’t work,” Feucht says. “Apologetics don’t really work, but really talking about Jesus [works]. I really believe that one of the most powerful ways for Muslims to encounter Jesus is through divine encounters.”
These divine encounters often manifest in supernatural miracles.
Feucht recalls meeting with one family who had recently escaped the Islamic State, many of them bearing battle wounds. The experience was filmed for the documentary.
“You watch as one by one, every single person in the tent gets healed,” Feucht says. “The coolest part about that is there was a little girl who was just 2 years old, and she had some really bad injuries to her arms and had never been able to raise them above her head.
“We prayed that the Lord would just straighten her arms. She raised them above her head and she starts clapping, and her parents basically start crying because they can’t believe what’s happening,” Feucht says.
Listen to the podcast to hear more of his incredible story.
