Saeed Abedini: Anti-Christ Spirit Is Lurking in America Ready to Attack Christians
Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor who spent three-and-a-half years imprisoned in Iran for his faith, is warning Americans that the "spirit of the anti-Christ" is coming in the face of activist judges who rule against Christians for their biblical beliefs.
Abedini, who voted for President Donald Trump in his bid for the White House against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday that last week the court system "stood against our country's security."
He linked to an article in USA Today reporting on Trump's executive order temporarily banning refugees amid security concerns. The order was halted late last week by a Seattle judge's injunction, and is currently being reviewed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Abedini wrote that he has a "serious problem" with the way some issues are handled by the judicial system, and warned that if the trajectory continues Christians could "go to prison or be punished for standing for their biblical beliefs."
As an example, he pointed to the cases of conservative Christian business owners who've been sued or fined for refusing to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies because of their belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
He argued that Christians are not only suffering persecution at the hands of extremists around the world, but also at the hands of "liberals and secularists."
Pointing to 1 John 4:3 as found in the Bible, he wrote: "This is the spirit of anti-Christ, whom [the] Apostle John said thousands years ago is active in the world and would get more power by globalism in [the] future."
The pastor suggested that Americans can "slow down" the "evil globalism" before the anti-Christ's coming by standing for "strong American nationalism, strong American military, strong American borders, strong American economy."
Abedini warned that the spirit of the anti-Christ "has already started his fight against us even before we were born."
"We are in this world for a spiritual fight for [the] Lord's Kingdom and [the] Lord has a plan for each of us. What's your spiritual fight today?" he asked.
Conservative groups, such as the Family Research Council, have long been speaking out against the growing number of legal cases taking aim at Christian business owners.
In December, the organization listed 12 major cases where Christians have been punished or threatened with punishment for adhering to biblical beliefs about marriage and being found guilty of not complying with LGBT anti-discrimination laws.
International Christian Concern listed the U.S. among the top 12 nations where Christians are targeted for their faith for the first time in its "Hall of Shame" 2016 report, precisely because of the court cases against Christian business owners.
"Decades of accumulated poor judicial decisions and precedents have twisted the First Amendment so that the courts, in defiance of the Founders, are pushing religion out of the public square, and into the small space of private expression," the ICC's report published in January stated.
"In essence, the courts are deciding that you only have full religious freedom and expression in the church and your home. In the public domain, your religious views and thoughts must be restrained and controlled."
