I have been inundated by Facebook Inbox Messages Titled “Prayer Request”.
Here is the text
The islamist group (ISIS) just took over “Quaragosh”, the biggest Christian city in Iraq. There are hundreds of men, women and children that are being beheaded. The people are asking for Prayers to be made on their behalf concerning the ongoing atrocity in their country. Please take one minute to pray for them. Pass the message across to all your contacts so that the prayer chain will not be broken. They asked for this special prayer. Please, ensure you pass across the prayer request to the body of Christ for fervent prayers offered on behalf of the brothers, sisters and children in Iraq. This is an urgent SOS message please. Thank you for your concern. May the Lord bless you and your family and always send help your way. Amen. With love, Joyce Meyer. Forward as received, please
Seriously I must have had 40 of these messages in the last week. Then I started to think, I kind of keep in touch with the political situation in Iraq and I haven’t heard of any significant advancements by IS in the last 6 months. So I did some research. The story mentioned in the prayer request message is just under 2 and half years old. It was posted online by CNN on 9th August 2014.
Here is an excerpt from the CNN story.
Iraq’s largest Christian town has been overrun by the same militant Islamists who have gained a foothold in parts of eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq.
The latest advance by ISIS (or the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) has caused thousands of Christians in the city to flee, just as other minority groups targeted by ISIS have done, as well as Shiite Muslims.
The French government confirmed that the Iraqi city of Qaraqosh has fallen into the hands of the militant al Qaeda offshoot.
“France is highly concerned about the latest progress of ISIS in the North of Iraq and by the taking of Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city of Iraq, and the horrible acts of violence that are committed,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement.
France called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the threat in Iraq.
Click here to read the full story.
Now we certainly need to pray for all of Iraq. And the atrocities in Iraq are horrendous. But it’s not helping by blindly forwarding stories that happened 29 months ago. If you are going to forward messages on mass to people, at least do a little research and make sure you aren’t being scammed and then being used as a lemming in the scam.
Between this message, messages about Facebook not being free from this Saturday, Messages about changes to Facebook’s privacy laws and generic Happy New Years gifs….I just may never open a Facebook Message again.
Anyway, that’s what I think,
Peter Pilt
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Categories: Current Affairs, Social Media
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I had to “correct” quite a few Christian friends about this about a month ago. It’s a way to get people sidetracked from what is actually happening when these sort of memes come out. Keep up the good work Peter and encourage people to be a mite more discerning and do their research. God bless
Oh hear hear! If you didn’t jump on that soapbox I would have. Good call, great blog.
Yes, this is old news but don’t be too quick to be critical of the senders. If nothing else it serves as a reminder that our brothers and sisters living in Islamic lands are living under extreme persecution.
How much time do you (or I) spend in prayer for the persecuted church?
Totally get that and you are right. However sending false information I think breeds a cynicism towards calls for prayer and so when real and urgent needs come through maybe they aren’t engaged with as passionately as they need to.
Even when this was written back in 2014 it was lies. 100s were indeed forced to flee, but there is no evidence of the mass beheadings. This story began with an e-mail claiming there had been 5 beheadings, not the 100s claimed here!! and that e-mail was proven to be a hoax.
Thank you! I always Google messages like this before forwarding them. I just received this very message. What I find is that when I draw attention to the fact that the situation is not applicable anymore people become really defensive!
I just received this in spanish from an aunt living in Uruguay. I googled it right away and came accross your page so i sent her the link. I doubt she will read it, but i did my part. Thank you.
A request for prayer is always good no matter how out dated, or even have inaccuracies. I received this prayer now, which lead me to pray for peace, and after that do a little research which lead to opening this blog. I do not feel that my time has been wasted or I have been scammed and it felt good to pray. I feel we all need to be reminded to pray, as with it comes all of God’s blessings to mankind. This old prayer request is much much better to receive than other forwarded msgs.
Pray without ceasing……we must continue to pray for peace. And praying in numbers is a good thing when ever it might be.
So I sent this a little hastily. This particular event happened in 2014. You can find the CNN report.
None the less, it has been 3 years since this event and Syria,Irak and many other places are still suffering from the same type of events. It is happening. Christians, Yazidis, Curds and other minority peoples are being attacked by ISIS. Cities are being destroyed girls and women are being forced into sex slavery. Boy children are being indoctrinated and transformed into warriors who will later kill their own people. Men are being brutally murdered. Prayer is still urgently needed. Don’t stop praying.
This email re Quaragosh and Indian Churches being burned down is still doing the rounds, now on WhatdApp.
Thanks for your research which I checked out.
so as me,
i recieved the polish version of this chain when in Poland
and today, the same in french
while i’m in
France !
perhaps there is a bit of truth
in the fact than christian are persecuted in islamic state !
Thank You 👍
Thanks for the update. We still need to pray eveey time
Thanks for the update. We still need to pray every time.
Praying from false information is deceptive. Paul said, “Pray with understanding also.” 1 Cor 14:15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.
We have to pray for them daily. May God bless them. At beginning 1500 and 1000 soldiers were killed shot mercilessly. 4 children were beheaded
Only God has the right over us.No body can kill any one.
Any christian beheaded is going straight to be with the lord.God is not mocked.if they knew the mind of God, they would have not crucified the king of glory.Now any hate killings of his followers is coverred by his blood spilled on Calvary.Hallelujah!
Thank you so much Peter!!! I was able to respond to such “prayer request” with this article to my friends, which are sending it to me in Spanish on facebook.
I appreciate the insights and information. May God continue to bless you and use you.